Quotes about matter
page 48

Aron Ra photo

“A writer’s subconscious is one of the filthiest places there are: as a matter of fact, you can find the whole world there.”

Romain Gary (1914–1980) French writer and diplomat

The Dance of Genghis Cohn (1967)

Anthony Bourdain photo
John Moffat photo

“I turned to Brecht and asked him why, if he felt the way he did about Jerome and the other American Communists, he kept on collaborating with them, particularly in view of their apparent approval or indifference to what was happening in the Soviet Union. […] Brecht shrugged his shoulders and kept on making invidious remarks about the American Communist Party and asserted that only the Soviet Union and its Communist Party mattered. […] But I argued… it was the Kremlin and above all Stalin himself who were responsible for the arrest and imprisonment of the opposition and their dependents. It was at this point that he said in words I have never forgotten, 'As for them, the more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.' I was so taken aback that I thought I had misheard him. 'What are you saying?' I asked. He calmly repeated himself, 'The more innocent they are, the more they deserve to be shot.' […] I was stunned by his words. 'Why? Why?' I exclaimed. All he did was smile at me in a nervous sort of way. I waited, but he said nothing after I repeated my question. I got up, went into the next room, and fetched his hat and coat. When I returned, he was still sitting in his chair, holding a drink in his hand. When he saw me with his hat and coat, he looked surprised. He put his glass down, rose, and with a sickly smile took his hat and coat and left. Neither of us said a word. I never saw him again.”

Sidney Hook (1902–1989) American philosopher

Out of Step (1985)

Jean Dubuffet photo
Will Rogers photo

“A man that don't love a Horse, there is something the matter with him. If he has no sympathy for the man that does love Horses, then there is something worse the matter with him.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

"A Skinny Dakota Kid Who Made Good"
The Illiterate Digest (1924)

George F. Kennan photo
John Muir photo
David Chalmers photo
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes photo
Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein photo

“There were many reasons why we did not gain complete success at Arnhem. The following in my view were the main ones. First. The operation was not regarded at Supreme Headquarters as the spearhead of a major Allied movement on the northern flank designed to isolate, and finally to occupy, the Ruhr - the one objective in the West which the Germans could not afford to lose. There is no doubt in my mind that Eisenhower always wanted to give priority to the northern thrust and to scale down the southern one. He ordered this to be done, and he thought that it was being done. It was not being done. Second. The airborne forces at Arnhem were dropped too far away from the vital objective - the bridge. It was some hours before they reached it. I take the blame for this mistake. I should have ordered Second Army and 1st Airborne Corps to arrange that at least one complete Parachute Brigade was dropped quite close to the bridge, so that it could have been captured in a matter of minutes and its defence soundly organised with time to spare. I did not do so. Third. The weather. This turned against us after the first day and we could not carry out much of the later airborne programme. But weather is always an uncertain factor, in war and in peace. This uncertainty we all accepted. It could only have been offset, and the operation made a certainty, by allotting additional resources to the project, so that it became an Allied and not merely a British project. Fourth. The 2nd S. S. Panzer Corps was refitting in the Arnhem area, having limped up there after its mauling in Normandy. We knew it was there. But we were wrong in supposing that it could not fight effectively; its battle state was far beyond our expectation. It was quickly brought into action against the 1st Airborne Division.”

Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976) British Army officer, Commander of Allied forces at the Battle of El Alamein

Concerning Operation Market Garden in his autobiography, 'The Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery' (1958)

Miguel de Unamuno photo
Garry Kasparov photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Friedrich Hayek photo
L. Frank Baum photo
Northrop Frye photo
Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Alexandre Dumas, fils photo

“We must love, no matter whom, no matter what, no matter how, provided only we do love.”

Alexandre Dumas, fils (1824–1895) French writer and dramatist, son of the homonym writer and dramatist

Il faut aimer n'importe qui, n'importe quoi, n'importe comment, pourvu qu'on aime.
Les Idées de Madame Aubray (1867), Act I, sc. ii; translation from Louis Proal (trans. A. R. Allinson) Passion and Criminality (London: Imperial Press, 1905) p. 563.

Báb photo
Herbert Spencer photo

“Evolution is definable as a change from an incoherent homogeneity to a coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

Pt. II, The Knowable; Ch. XV, The Law of Evolution (continued)
First Principles (1862)

Frances Kellor photo
Ayn Rand photo

“The Arabs are one of the least developed cultures. They are typically nomads. Their culture is primitive, and they resent Israel because it's the sole beachhead of modern science and civilization on their continent. When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Ayn Rand Ford Hall Forum lecture, 1974, text published on the website of The Ayn Rand Institute http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_america_at_war_israeli_arab_conflict

Joseph Nye photo

“At some point, consequences matter.”

Joseph Nye (1937) American political scientist

Source: Understanding International Conflicts: An Introduction to Theory and History (6th ed., 2006), Chapter 1, Is There an Enduring Logic of Conflict in World Politics?, p. 21.

David Vitter photo
John Dingell photo

“Let me remind you this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.”

John Dingell (1926–2019) American politician

From the live telephone interview which he gave to Paul W. Smith on his show Monday morning (on Detroit WJR News/Talk 760), March 22, 2010 about universal health care legislation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvDwFQiSkBU&feature=player_embedded.

Rich Mullins photo

“The qualities we possess should never be a matter for satisfaction, but the qualities we have discarded.”

Wei Wu Wei (1895–1986) writer

Fingers Pointing Towards The Moon (1958)

Colin Wilson photo
Linus Torvalds photo
Aldo Capitini photo
Steve Ballmer photo

“We like our model, as we are evolving it. In every category Apple competes, it's the low-volume player, except in tablets. In the PC market, obviously the advantage of diversity has mattered since 90-something percent of PCs that get sold are Windows PCs. We'll see what winds up mattering in tablets.”

Steve Ballmer (1956) American businessman who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft

Ballmer's New Mission for Microsoft, 29 October 2012, 2014-02-28, The Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204789304578087112202063912,
2010s

Max Ernst photo
Gene Wolfe photo

“PARADOX: A statement that reduces the matter at hand to complete obscurity while clarifying it. […] Paradoxes are sensitive and can be routed by sneering.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

"Words Weird and Wonderful", in Castle of the Otter (1982), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

Ali Shariati photo
Paul von Hindenburg photo

“Recently, a whole series of cases has been reported to me in which judges, lawyers, and officials of the Judiciary who are disabled war veterans and whose record in office is flawless, have been forcibly sent on leave, and are later to be dismissed for the sole reason that they are of Jewish descent.
It is quite intolerable for me personally…that Jewish officials who were disabled in the war should suffer such treatment, [especially] as, with the express approval of the government, I addressed a Proclamation to the German people on the day of the national uprising, March 21st, in which I bowed in reverence before the dead of the war and remembered in gratitude the bereaved families of the war dead, the disabled, and my old comrades at the front.
I am certain, Mr. Chancellor, that you share this human feeling, and request you, most cordially and urgently, to look into this matter yourself, and to see to it that there is some uniform arrangement for all branches of the public service in Germany.
As far as my own feelings are concerned, officials, judges, teachers and lawyers who are war invalids, fought at the front, are sons of war dead, or themselves lost sons in the war should remain in their positions unless an individual case gives reason for different treatment. If they were worthy of fighting for Germany and bleeding for Germany, then they must also be considered worthy of continuing to serve the Fatherland in their professions.”

Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and president of Germany

Letter to Chancellor Adolf Hitler http://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/hindenburg-and-hitler-on-jewish-war-veterans/, (April 4th 1933)
President

Newton Lee photo
Guy Gavriel Kay photo
Shreya Ghoshal photo
Joseph Beuys photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo

“The Koran cannot be translated — the "map" changes on translation no matter how carefully one tries.”

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

Robert A. Heinlein, in Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

John McCain photo
John of St. Samson photo
Terry Brooks photo
John Woolman photo
James Clerk Maxwell photo

“We may find illustrations of the highest doctrines of science in games and gymnastics, in travelling by land and by water, in storms of the air and of the sea, and wherever there is matter in motion.”

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) Scottish physicist

Introductory Lecture on Experimental Physics held at Cambridge in October 1871, re-edited by W. D. Niven (2003) in Volume 2 of The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, Courier Dover Publications, p. 243.

Paul Gabriël photo

“Oh, for that matter you must look carefully how in every region of our country the map looks completely different. Not only the pastures have different shades, but the cows are different, yes even the people have, as it were, adopted the character of the soil [where] they were born and raised. That is so evident, that when I still stayed with Roelofs in Brussels [early 1860's] and we used to go to Holland to make our studies in the beautiful part of the season, coming home Roelofs didn't have to tell me where he had been. I recognized it in his work and one by one I called him the spots of our homeland [The Netherlands], where he had made sketches of the countryside and its residents during his study trip.”

Paul Gabriël (1828–1903) painter (1828-1903)

translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch / citaat van Paul Gabriël, in Nederlands: O, wat dat betreft, dan moet ge maar eens goed opletten, hoe in ieder gewest van ons land het plattegrond er geheel anders uitziet; niet alleen het weiland heeft een andere tint, maar de koeien zijn anders, ja de menschen hebben als 't ware het karakter aangenomen van den grond zij zijn geboren en getogen. Dat is zoo sterk, dat toen ik met Roelofs nog in Brussel woonde [vroege 1860's] en wij in 't mooie gedeelte van het seizoen naar Holland plachten te gaan om studies te maken, Roelofs wanneer hij thuis kwam, mij niet behoefde te zeggen waar hij geweest was. Ik zag het aan zijn werk en één voor één noemde ik hem de plekjes van ons vaderland, waar hij op studietocht van het land en de bewoners schetsen had gemaakt.
Quote of Gabriël, in a talk to W. C. Nakken, c. 1880; published in Elsevier's geïllustreerd maandschrift: verzameling van Nederlandsche letterkundige kunstwerken geïllustreerd door Nederlandsche kunstenaars, W. C. Nakken, June/July 1898; taken from the excerpt https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/365 in the Collection RKD Letters, Manuscripts and small Archives], The Hague
1880's + 1890's

Emo Philips photo

“My girlfriend always giggles during sex. No matter what she's reading.”

Emo Philips (1956) American comedian

E=MO² (1985), Track Two + Track Two continued

Francois Rabelais photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Chris Stedman photo
Ludwig Feuerbach photo

“All presentation, all demonstration—and the presentation of thought is demonstration—has, according to its original determination—and this is all that matters to us—the cognitive activity of the other person as its ultimate aim.”

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) German philosopher and anthropologist

Z. Hanfi, trans., in The Fiery Brook (1972), p. 67
Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy (1839)

Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet photo

“Personal injury is a more serious matter than damage to property.”

Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet (1802–1880) Lord Chief Justice

Reg. v. Heppinstale (1859), 7 W. R. 178.

Fabian Picardo photo
John Buchan photo
Melanie C photo

“No matter what they say the time has come
I'm ready now to start a new beginning
With all our hopes and all our dreams
And I know the stars will shine for you and for me
From the moment you believe.”

Melanie C (1974) British singer-songwriter, actress and businesswoman

"The Moment You Believe" (co-written with Peter-John Vettese) · YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=519yuRHApfY
This Time (2007)

Rollo May photo
Stanisław Lem photo
Alexander Maclaren photo
Frank Wilczek photo
Alex Salmond photo

“I wouldn't dream of intruding into a reserved matter.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Principles and Priorities : Programme for Government (September 5, 2007)

Siddharth Katragadda photo

“Writing can only be as good as its subject matter.”

Siddharth Katragadda (1972) Indian writer

page 44
The Other Wife (2003)

Shashi Tharoor photo

“Ultimately, what matters in determining the validity of a nation is the will of its inhabitants to live and strive together.”

Shashi Tharoor (1956) Indian politician, diplomat, author

"The Shashi Tharoor column: The creation of India," 2001

Bruce Palmer Jr. photo
Robert E. Howard photo
John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh photo
Joanna MacGregor photo

“My favorite composers tend to be great improvisers as well as great players. It doesn't matter whether they're contemporary or classical.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

The Independent, 23/06/2003
On Classical Music

Aron Ra photo

“It just seems to me that we either have an irrational need to believe or we have a desire to understand and to improve that understanding. For those of the latter set, accuracy and accountability are paramount, but for creationists, those things don’t even matter.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Correspondence with a Creationist http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2017/06/06/correspondence-with-a-creationist/ (June 6, 2017)

Laurence Sterne photo

“They order, said I, this matter better in France.”

Source: A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768), Line 1.

Rick Perry photo

“A root definition describing a notional system chosen for its relevance to what the investigator and/or people in the problem situation perceive as matters of contention.”

Peter Checkland (1930) British management scientist

Source: Systems thinking, systems practice: includes a 30-year retrospective, 1999, p. 319 cited in: Raymond W. Y. Kao (2010) Sustainable Economy. p. 411

Tom Robbins photo
Alfred Horsley Hinton photo
Woodrow Wilson photo

“The sum of the whole matter is this, that our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be redeemed spiritually.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

“The Road Away from Revolution”, Atlantic Monthly 132:146 (August 1923). Reprinted in PWW 68:395
1920s and later

Gertrude Stein photo
Aron Ra photo

“Consistency of the person's strategic preference across tests (and subject matters) is curiously high.”

Gordon Pask (1928–1996) British psychologist

Source: Learning Strategies, Teaching Strategies, and Conceptual or Learning Style (1988), p. 85. as cited in: Colin A. Hardy, Michael Mawer (1999) Learning and Teaching in Physical Education. p. 62.

Scott Lynch photo

““Why the hell are you here?”
“A matter of conscience.”
“Really?” said Locke. “Yours? You keep alluding to its existence. Somehow I’m not convinced.””

Source: The Republic of Thieves (2013), Chapter 9 “The Five-Year Game: Reasonable Doubt” section 1 (p. 543)

Leonid Brezhnev photo

“Every man must be made to realize that further retreat is impossible. He must realize with his mind and heart that this is a matter of life and death of the Soviet state, of the life and death of the people of our country…the Nazi troops must be stopped now, before it is too late.”

Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Statement made in World War II, as a commissar on the southern front, as quoted in Leonid I. Brezhnev : Pages from his Life (1978) by Academy of Sciences of the USSR, p. 49; also in For the Soul of Mankind : The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War (2007) by Melvyn P. Leffler, p. 237

L. S. Lowry photo

“I don't care tuppence for what they do in London in the art world. It doesn't matter to me. I don't think of it. All I am concerned with is doing my own thing in my own way.. as well as I can.”

L. S. Lowry (1887–1976) British visual artist

Mister Lowry- interview Tyne Tees Television 1968 L. S. Lowry - A Biography by Shelley Rhode Lowry Press 1999 ISBN 9781902970011.
Tynes Tees Television Interview 1968

“Every day, no matter how you fight it, you learn a little more about yourself, and all most of it does is teach humility.”

John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) writer from the United States

Travis McGee series, (1966)

William Stanley Jevons photo
Rollo May photo
Piero Manzoni photo
Poul Anderson photo

“There really wasn’t much in a man’s life that mattered. But those few things mattered terribly.”

Section 3 “Admiralty”, Chapter IX (p. 200)
The Star Fox (1965)

Bill Hybels photo
Jeane Kirkpatrick photo

“Americans need to face the truth about themselves, no matter how pleasant it is.”

Jeane Kirkpatrick (1926–2006) American diplomat and Presidential advisor

As quoted by Dinesh D'Souza in What's So Great About America (2003), Ch. 6: America the Beautiful

David Graeber photo
Benito Mussolini photo

“It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the pants. That is what I shall do.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Remark to Galeazzo Ciano (11 April 1940), quoted in Famous Lines : A Columbia Dictionary of Familiar Quotations (1997) by Robert Andrews. p. 330
1940s

Pauli Hanhiniemi photo