Quotes about many
page 38

Jack Johnson (musician) photo
Theodore Kaczynski photo
David Brin photo

“Anyone who loves nature, as I do, cries out at the havoc being spread by humans, all over the globe. The pressures of city life can be appalling, as are the moral ambiguities that plague us, both at home and via yammering media. The temptation to seek uncomplicated certainty sends some rushing off to ashrams and crystal therapy, while many dive into the shelter of fundamentalism, and other folk yearn for better, “simpler” times. Certain popular writers urgently prescribe returning to ancient, nobler ways.
Ancient, nobler ways. It is a lovely image... and pretty much a lie. John Perlin, in his book A Forest Journey, tells how each prior culture, from tribal to pastoral to urban, wreaked calamities upon its own people and environment. I have been to Easter Island and seen the desert its native peoples wrought there. The greater harm we do today is due to our vast power and numbers, not something intrinsically vile about modern humankind.
Technology produces more food and comfort and lets fewer babies die. “Returning to older ways” would restore some balance all right, but entail a holocaust of untold proportion, followed by resumption of a kind of grinding misery never experienced by those who now wistfully toss off medieval fantasies and neolithic romances. A way of life that was nasty, brutish, and nearly always catastrophic for women.
That is not to say the pastoral image doesn’t offer hope. By extolling nature and a lifestyle closer to the Earth, some writers may be helping to create the very sort of wisdom they imagine to have existed in the past. Someday, truly idyllic pastoral cultures may be deliberately designed with the goal of providing placid and just happiness for all, while retaining enough technology to keep existence decent.
But to get there the path lies forward, not by diving into a dark, dank, miserable past. There is but one path to the gracious, ecologically sound, serene pastoralism sought by so many. That route passes, ironically, through successful consummation of this, our first and last chance, our scientific age.”

Afterword (p. 563)
Glory Season (1993)

David Bowie photo
Harold Macmillan photo

“In the course of some ninety years, the wheel has certainly turned full circle. The Protectionist case, which seemed to most of our fathers and grandfathers so outrageous, even so wicked, has been re-stated and carried to victory. Free Trade, which was almost like a sacred dogma, is in its turn rejected and despised… many acute and energetic minds in the ’forties “looked to the end.” They foresaw what seemed beyond the vision of their rivals— that after the period of expansion would come the period of over-production… [Disraeli] perceived only too clearly the danger of sacrificing everything to speed. Had he lived now, he would not have been surprised. The development of the world on competitive rather than on complementary lines; the growth of economic nationalism; the problems involved in the increasing productivity of labour, both industrial and agricultural; the absence of any new and rapidly developing area offering sufficient attractive opportunities for investment; finally, the heavy ensuing burden of unemployment, in every part of the world— all these phenomena, so constantly in our minds as part of the conditions of crisis, would have seemed to the men of Manchester nothing but a hideous nightmare. Disraeli would have understood them. I think he would have expected them.”

Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) British politician

‘Preface’ to Derek Walker-Smith, The Protectionist Case in the 1840s (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1933), pp. vii-viii.
1920s-1950s

Jiang Yi-huah photo

“We will not change what we have already announced to the public (regarding minimum wage hike). This is something that the workers have been waiting many months for, and the government should respect the efforts they put into their daily duties.”

Jiang Yi-huah (1960) Taiwanese politician

Jiang Yi-huah (2013) cited in " Minimum wage hike in place despite GDP http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2013/05/01/377440/Minimum-wage.htm" on The China Post, 1 May 2013

Ernest Gellner photo
Estelle Getty photo

“Too many of you, my friends, are dying. Now it's time for me to do my part and help you.”

Estelle Getty (1923–2008) actress

Estelle Getty, ‘Golden Girls’ Matriarch, Dies at 84, New York Times, July 23, 2008

“Probably the greatest single weakness of the Sino-Soviet bloc is her shaky economy. Here is a soft spot where peaceful pressures could be devastating. No amount of Soviet propaganda can cover up the obvious collapse of the Chinese communes and the sluggish inefficiency of the Soviet collectivized farms. Every single Soviet satellite is languishing in a depression. Even Pravda has openly criticized the lack of bare essentials and the shoddy quality of Russian-made goods. These factors of austerity and deprivation add to the hatred and misery of the people which constantly feed the flames of potential revolt. Terrorist tactics have been used by the Red leaders to suppress uprisings. In spite of the virtual "state of siege" which exists throughout the Soviet empire, there are many outbreaks of violent protest. All of this explains why the Soviet leaders are constantly pleading for "free trade," "long-term loans," "increased availability of material goods from the West." Economically, Communism is collapsing but the West has not had the good sense to exploit it. Instead, the United States, Great Britain and 37 other Western powers are shipping vast quantities of goods to the Sino-Soviet bloc. Some business leaders have had the temerity to suggest that trade with the Reds helps the cause of peace. They suggest that "you never fight the people you trade with." Apparently they cannot even remember as far back as the late Thirties when this exact type of thinking resulted in the sale of scrap iron and oil to the Japanese just before World War II. After the attack on Pearl Harbor it became tragically clear that while trade with friends may promote peace, trade with a threatening enemy is an act of self-destruction. Have we forgotten that fatal lesson so soon?”

The Naked Communist (1958)

Alfred North Whitehead photo

“The term many presupposes the term one, and the term one presupposes the term many.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Pt. I, ch. 2, sec. 2.
1920s, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)

Benoît Minisini photo

“I am using many other languages, but I never forgot that I have learned and done a lot with Basic.”

Benoît Minisini (1973) French computer programmer

Quoted from the Gambas Website, http://gambas.sourceforge.net/introduction.html http://gambas.sourceforge.net/introduction.html

Gerald Ford photo
Surendra Pratap Singh photo

“Parting hugs and kisses filled their eyes. But misgivings remained in many a heart.”

Surendra Pratap Singh (1948–1997) Indian journalist

Parrot Under the Pine Tree

Carl Friedrich Gauss photo
Anthony Eden photo
Anneli Jäätteenmäki photo

“I haven't got any papers. I have two ears, and I've heard many things.”

Anneli Jäätteenmäki (1955) Finnish politician

when she was suspected to have leaked confidential information from classified Foreign Ministry documents

Mani Madhava Chakyar photo
George Howard Earle, Jr. photo
Robert Bloomfield photo
Yoshida Kenkō photo
John Moffat photo
Ken Robinson photo
Michael Badnarik photo
Vyasa photo
Kevin Kelly photo

“Without some element of governance from the top, bottom-up control will freeze when options are many. Without some element of leadership, the many at the bottom will be paralysed with choices.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

Barry Humphries photo
Tenzin Gyatso photo
Jörg Immendorff photo

“I am for a form of art, that sees itself as one of the many means through which human society can be changed.”

Jörg Immendorff (1945–2007) German artist

Jörg Immendorff (1976), as cited in: William Packer. " Obituary: Jörg Immendorff http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2101396,00.html," The Guardian, 13 June 2007

William Dalrymple photo
Ellen G. White photo
John L. Lewis photo
William McFee photo

“It is extraordinary how many emotional storms one may weather in safety if one is ballasted with ever so little gold.”

William McFee (1881–1966) American writer

Book I: The Suburb, Ch. X
Casuals of the Sea (1916)

Niall Ferguson photo
Scott Shaw photo
Roger Ebert photo
David Mitchell photo
J.C. Ryle photo
Lorin Morgan-Richards photo

“If you decide to walk for others be prepared to carry them for many miles.”

Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer

Shared on social media on June 22, 2018.
Quotes as Marcil d'Hirson Garron

William Morris photo
Audrey Niffenegger photo
Joel Fuhrman photo
Scott Lynch photo

““When I get this door open, you’re dead, Jean!“
“When you get that door open? I look forward to many long years of life, then.“”

Reminiscence “The Capa of Vel Virazzo” section 5 (p. 65)
Red Seas Under Red Skies (2007)

Frederick Douglass photo

“Although I cannot accuse myself of being remarkably unstable, I do not pretend that I have never altered my opinion both in respect to men and things. Indeed, I have been very much modified both in feeling and opinion within the last fourteen years. When I escaped from slavery, and was introduced to the Garrisonians, I adopted very many of their opinions, and defended them just as long as I deemed them true. I was young, had read but little, and naturally took some things on trust. Subsequent experience and reading have led me to examine for myself. This had brought me to other conclusions. When I was a child, I thought and spoke as a child. But the question is not as to what were my opinions fourteen years ago, but what they are now. If I am right now, it really does not matter what I was fourteen years ago. My position now is one of reform, not of revolution. I would act for the abolition of slavery through the Government — not over its ruins. If slaveholders have ruled the American Government for the last fifty years, let the anti-slavery men rule the nation for the next fifty years. If the South has made the Constitution bend to the purposes of slavery, let the North now make that instrument bend to the cause of freedom and justice. If 350,000 slaveholders have, by devoting their energies to that single end, been able to make slavery the vital and animating spirit of the American Confederacy for the last 72 years, now let the freemen of the North, who have the power in their own hands, and who can make the American Government just what they think fit, resolve to blot out for ever the foul and haggard crime, which is the blight and mildew, the curse and the disgrace of the whole United States.”

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

1860s, The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery? (1860)

Patrick Buchanan photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Brian Leiter photo
Milton Friedman photo
Rembrandt van Rijn photo

“I am most astonished by what has been written about the [painting] 'Alexander', which is so well done that I must suppose there are not many lovers of art [amatori] at Messina. I am also surprised that Your Lordship [Don Antonio Ruffo] should complain as much about the price as about the canvas, but if Your Lordship wishes to return it as he did the sketch [schizzo] of Homer, I will do another Alexander... If Your Lordship likes the Alexander as is, very well. If he does not want to keep it, six hundred florins remain outstanding. And for the Homer [painting] five hundred florins plus the expenses of canvas, it being understood that everything is at Your Lordship's expense. Having agreed to it, would he kindly send me his desired measurements. Awaiting the response to settle the matter.”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

Quote of Rembrandt's letter, Nov/Dec. 1662, to buyer Don Antonio Ruffo from Messina, Sicily (location: RD, 1662/12, 509); as quoted in Rembrandt's Eyes, Simon Schama, Alfred A. Knopf, Borzoi Books, NEW YORK 1999, p. 591, & notes 32-36
Rembrant's reaction after complaints of Don Antonio Ruffo, dispatched through the Dutch consul in Messina, Jan van den Broeck, who was on his way to Amsterdam. Once there he was to inform Isaac Just (presumably the intermediary between Rembrandt and the Messina patrician), of the intense dissatisfaction at the work, which Don Ruffo had received. 'The Alexander', he complained, being unacceptably stitched together from four separate pieces, showed seams which were 'too horrible for words.'..g with so many defects.. (Don Ruffo already bought Rembrandt's painting Aristotle with a Bust of Homer c. 1655 and still existing: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_-_Aristotle_with_a_Bust_of_Homer_-_WGA19232.jpg, but 'The Alexander' of Rembrandt is lost).
1640 - 1670

Neil Gorsuch photo
Sara García photo

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

Sara García (1895–1980) Mexican actress

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

Winston S. Churchill photo
William O. Douglas photo
Ken Ham photo
Joseph Heller photo
Lee Smolin photo
Titian photo

“Not every painter has a gift for painting, in fact, many painters are disappointed when they meet with difficulties in art. Painting done under pressure by artists without the necessary talent can only give rise to formlessness, as painting is a profession that requires peace of mind. The painter must always seek the essence of things, always represent the essential characteristics and emotions of the person he is painting..”

Titian (1488–1576) Italian painter

As quoted in The Quotable Artist (2002) by Peggy Hadden, p. 71.
As quoted in The Quotable Artist (2002) by Peggy Hadden, p. 72.
undated quotes
Variant: They who are compelled to paint by force, without being in the necessary mood, can produce only ungainly works, because this profession requires an unruffled temper.

John Doe photo

“There are no angels there are devils in many ways”

John Doe (1954) American singer, songwriter, actor, poet, guitarist and bass player

Song lyrics, Los Angeles (1980), The World's A Mess It's In My Kiss

“Every woman I knew secretly longed to have many lovers but she stopped herself for so many reasons. I had the capacity to love many at a time and for this had been called shallow and wayward and a good-time girl…”

Protima Bedi (1948–1998) Indian model and dancer

She wrote in "Timepass: The Memoir of Protima Bedi" quoted in She had a lust for life, 5 February 2000, The Tribune http://www.tribuneindia.com/2000/20000205/windows/above.htm,

Margaret Atwood photo
Democritus photo

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

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

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

William H. Gass photo
Hermann Hesse photo

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

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

Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo
Colin Powell photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“It was a slow and brutal death for so many…Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack.”

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

President Trump on Syria's chemical weapons attack, "President Trump blasts Syria for 'cruelly murdering' its own people as U.S. fires at least 50 missiles at airfield" http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-blasts-syria-murdering-civilians-u-s-strike-article-1.3027449, 6 April 2017.
2010s, 2017, April

Marshall Goldsmith photo
Qutb al-Din Aibak photo

“For instance, when Muhammad Ghauri and Qutbuddin Aibak mounted a combined attack on the Khokhars of the Salt Range (Koh-i-Jud), “great plunder was taken and many captives, so that five Hindu [Khokhars] captives could be bought for a dinar”. Captives were so plentiful that they were also sent “to sell in Khurasan, not long after.””

Qutb al-Din Aibak (1150–1210) Turkic peoples king of Northwest India

Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10, (quoting Hasan Nizami, Taj-ul-Maasir, E. D., II; Minhaj)

George Hendrik Breitner photo

“.. A market, a quay, a river. a gang of soldiers.... is just as good and more history than 'The cousins of Spinoza are visiting him accompanied by their mamma'. O! if I could say some time as Munkaczy: 'I painted almost everything I dreamed when I was 12 years old'. He can tell this, the man which I love as the greatest painter, whatever they may say here [in The Hague]. I hope that you once may see a true painting of me, not one of the many I shall have to make and which are [only] something, but a truly grandiose thing. All wasted fire.”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) ..Een markt een kaai een rivier. een bende soldaten.. ..is net zoo goed en meer geschiedenis dan 'De nichtjes van Spinoza komen hem bezoeken vergezeld door hunne mamma'. O! dat ik nog eens kon zeggen als Munkaczy: ik heb bijna alles geschilderd wat ik droomde toen ik 12 jaar was. dat kan hij zeggen hem die ik voor de grootste schilder hou wat ze hier ook mogen zeggen. Ik hoop dat U nog eens een waar schilderij van me moogt zien, niet een van de velen die ik zal moeten maken en ook wel iets is, maar iets waarachtigsch grootsch. Allemaal verspild vuur.
quote of Breitner in a letter to his Maecenas A.P. van Stolk, 28 March 1882; original text in RKD-Archive, The Hague https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/597
before 1890

David Cronenberg photo
Adlai Stevenson photo
David Gerrold photo
Alfred P. Sloan photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo
George William Curtis photo

“The slavery debate has been really a death-struggle from that moment. Mr. Clay thought not. Mr. Clay was a shrewd politician, but the difference between him and Calhoun was the difference between principle and expediency. Calhoun's sharp, incisive genius has engraved his name, narrow but deep, upon our annals. The fluent and facile talents of Clay in a bold, large hand wrote his name in honey upon many pages. But time is already licking it away. Henry Clay was our great compromiser. That was known, and that was the reason why Mr. Buchanan's story of a bargain with J. Q. Adams always clung to Mr. Clay. He had compromised political policies so long that he had forgotten there is such a thing as political principle, which is simply a name for the moral instincts applied to government. He did not see that when Mr. Calhoun said he should return to the Constitution he took the question with him, and shifted the battle-ground from the low, poisonous marsh of compromise, where the soldiers never know whether they are standing on land or water, to the clear, hard height of principle. Mr. Clay had his omnibus at the door to roll us out of the mire. The Whig party was all right and ready to jump in. The Democratic party was all right. The great slavery question was going to be settled forever. The bushel-basket of national peace and plenty and prosperity was to be heaped up and run over. Mr. Pierce came all the way from the granite hills of New Hampshire, where people are supposed to tell the truth, to an- nounce to a happy country that it was at peace — that its bushel-basket was never so overflowingly full before. And then what? Then the bottom fell out. Then the gentlemen in the national rope -walk at Washington found they had been busily twining a rope of sand to hold the country together. They had been trying to compromise the principles of human justice, not the percentage of a tariff; the instincts of human nature and consequently of all permanent government, and the conscience of the country saw it. Compromises are the sheet-anchor of the Union — are they? As the English said of the battle of Bunker Hill, that two such victories would ruin their army, so two such sheet- anchors as the Compromise of 1850 would drag the Union down out of sight forever.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Stanley Baldwin photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo
Robert Holmes photo
John Wesley photo

“As to the word itself, it is generally allowed to be of Greek extraction. But whence the Greek word, enthousiasmos, is derived, none has yet been able to show. Some have endeavoured to derive it from en theoi, in God; because all enthusiasm has reference to him. … It is not improbable, that one reason why this uncouth word has been retained in so many languages was, because men were not better agreed concerning the meaning than concerning the derivation of it. They therefore adopted the Greek word, because they did not understand it: they did not translate it into their own tongues, because they knew not how to translate it; it having been always a word of a loose, uncertain sense, to which no determinate meaning was affixed.
It is not, therefore, at all surprising, that it is so variously taken at this day; different persons understanding it in different senses, quite inconsistent with each other. Some take it in a good sense, for a divine impulse or impression, superior to all the natural faculties, and suspending, for the time, either in whole or in part, both the reason and the outward senses. In this meaning of the word, both the Prophets of old, and the Apostles, were proper enthusiasts; being, at divers times, so filled with the Spirit, and so influenced by Him who dwelt in their hearts, that the exercise of their own reason, their senses, and all their natural faculties, being suspended, they were wholly actuated by the power of God, and “spake” only “as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
Others take the word in an indifferent sense, such as is neither morally good nor evil: thus they speak of the enthusiasm of the poets; of Homer and Virgil in particular. And this a late eminent writer extends so far as to assert, there is no man excellent in his profession, whatsoever it be, who has not in his temper a strong tincture of enthusiasm. By enthusiasm these appear to understand, all uncommon vigour of thought, a peculiar fervour of spirit, a vivacity and strength not to be found in common men; elevating the soul to greater and higher things than cool reason could have attained.
But neither of these is the sense wherein the word “enthusiasm” is most usually understood. The generality of men, if no farther agreed, at least agree thus far concerning it, that it is something evil: and this is plainly the sentiment of all those who call the religion of the heart “enthusiasm.” Accordingly, I shall take it in the following pages, as an evil; a misfortune, if not a fault. As to the nature of enthusiasm, it is, undoubtedly a disorder of the mind; and such a disorder as greatly hinders the exercise of reason. Nay, sometimes it wholly sets it aside: it not only dims but shuts the eyes of the understanding. It may, therefore, well be accounted a species of madness; of madness rather than of folly: seeing a fool is properly one who draws wrong conclusions from right premisses; whereas a madman draws right conclusions, but from wrong premisses. And so does an enthusiast suppose his premisses true, and his conclusions would necessarily follow. But here lies his mistake: his premisses are false. He imagines himself to be what he is not: and therefore, setting out wrong, the farther he goes, the more he wanders out of the way.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Sermon 37 "The Nature of Enthusiasm"
Sermons on Several Occasions (1771)

Winston S. Churchill photo

“The contrast between the morals at the centre of power and those practiced by wide communities in many subject lands presented problems of ever growing unrest.”

On the last years of Rome and Roman Britain; Vol I; The Birth of Britain.
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956–58)