Quotes about matter
page 67

“Where the self is conceived as prior to its ends, independent of the roles it may occupy at any given time, reputation cannot be a matter of honor in the traditional sense. For the unencumbered self, not honor but dignity is the basis of respect―the dignity that consists in the capacity of persons as autonomous agents to choose their ends for themselves. Unlike honor, which ties respect for persons to the roles they inhabit, dignity resides in a self antecedent to social institutions, and so is invulnerable to injury by insult alone. For selves such as these, reputation matters, not intrinsically, as a matter of honor, but only instrumentally, as a business asset for example.”

Michael J. Sandel (1953) American political philosopher

Chap. 3. Religious Liberty and Freedom of Speech
Democracy's Discontent (1996)

Personality, Business, Sense, Time

“The most important thing is to enjoy your life – to be happy – it’s all that matters.”

Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) British actress

Happiness, Life, Happy, Life

“To me it is always the people rather than the places that matter.”

Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) British explorer

Source: Desert, Marsh and Mountain (1979), p. 122.

People

“Generals are, as a matter of course, allowed to be far more idiotic than ordinary human beings are permitted to be.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Our Federal Union (1975), p. 248
General sources

“I think that as long as somebody feels passion and there’s passion behind the words, it doesn’t really matter how loud or soft they are, they’ll reach you.”

Alisen Down (1976) Canadian actress

Source: 12 Monkeys: Alisen Down On Why We Love Olivia https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/12-monkeys-alisen-down-on-why-we-love-olivia/ (July 6, 2018)

Thinking, Passion, Feeling

“The question to ask believers is this: “Does it really matter whether what you believe about God is true—or don’t you care?””

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

If it does matter, then you must justify your beliefs; if it doesn’t, then you must justify belief itself.
Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 63

God, Question

“Elegance is not a matter of good taste. Every culture has its own idea of beauty, which is often completely different from ours.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), About Elegance

Beauty, Idea

“No matter how various the subject matter I write on, I was a science-fiction writer first and it is as a science-fiction writer that I want to be identified.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

In Joy Still Felt (1980), pp. 286-287
General sources

Science

“It doesn't matter how much you think and wish, doing is what matters.”

Vladimer Botsvadze

Thinking

“It is a matter of disillusion to young male Americans otherwise informed, to discover that the French are a moral people — judged, that is, by American country-club standards.”

John Steinbeck book The Short Reign of Pippin IV

The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957)

Country, People

“They learn nothing, for they’re convinced they know everything that matters.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Margarets (2007), Chapter 24, “I Am M’urgi/On B’Yurngrad” (p. 196)

Learning

“It is hard to have patience with people who say 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.”

Clive Staples Lewis book A Grief Observed

There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter.
A Grief Observed (1961)

Patience, People, Death

“We must negotiate from unity and strength and stay firm on matters of principle and flexible on matters of procedure.”

Walter Reuther (1907–1970) Labor union leader

Address before the Berlin Freedom Rally, West Berlin, Germany, May 1, 1959, as quoted in Walter P Reuther: Selected Papers (1961), by Henry M. Christman, p. 280
1950s, Address before the Berlin Freedom Rally (1959)

“Just write. Just write. Just write. [...]
When we are in the heart of writing it doesn't matter where we are. We can write anyplace.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Write anyplace". p.110, 111
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

Heart

“If AI has a goal and humanity just happens to be in the way, it will destroy humanity as a matter of course without even thinking about it. No hard feelings.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/06/elon-musk-warns-ai-could-create-immortal-dictator-in-documentary.html
Context: If AI has a goal and humanity just happens to be in the way, it will destroy humanity as a matter of course without even thinking about it. No hard feelings. It’s just like, if we’re building a road and an anthill just happens to be in the way, we don’t hate ants, we’re just building a road, and so, goodbye anthill.

Thinking, Way, Feeling

“You might be surprised to find this out, but sweets were a big problem for me when I was younger. It didn't matter what it was, I couldn't walk past it without buying it. Now I've cut sweets out. It actually took me several years to get to this point. Now I don't really like sweets anymore.”

Robert Lewandowski (1988) Polish association football player

"Lewandowski exclusive, pt II: 'We're stronger now'" https://www.bundesliga.com/en/news/Bundesliga/noblmd09-fc-bayern-muenchen-robert-lewandowski-exclusive-interview.jsp (2016)

Past, Problem

“No matter how good a system may be, it is of no use if the people do not want it. I believe that the intrinsic function of politics is to carry out the public will, if only on a probational basis, and to make sure it works well.”

Chun Doo-hwan (1931–2021) Korean politician and army general

1987

People

“He that is willing to tolerate any religion, or discrepant way of religion, besides his own, unless it be in matters merely indifferent, either doubts of his own, or is not sincere in it.”

Nathaniel Ward (1578–1652) Puritan clergyman and pamphleteer in England and Massachusetts

In 1647, as quoted in "Free Speech and Its Present Crisis" https://www.city-journal.org/free-speech-crisis (2018), by Allen C. Guelzo, City Journal

Religion, Indifference, Sincerity, Way

“Do not anticipate matters before their time that you may regret. Do not live just with wishes that your hearts may be hard. Be merciful to the weak and ask for mercy from God by being merciful yourselves!”

Muhammad al-Taqi (811–835) ninth of the Twelve Imams of Twelver Shi'ism

[Baqir Sharīf al-Qurashi, The life of Imam Muhammad al-Jawad, Wonderful Maxims and Arts, 2005]

God, Time, Heart

“When I was young, the idea of “world cinema” didn’t exist. We would watch any films that we could find in the cinemas. Today, some of those films have become accessible again on streaming platforms. In a way, it doesn’t matter as much where they exist as long as people have access to them.”

Wong Kar-wai (1958) Hong Kong screenwriter, film producer and film director

"5 Questions for Wong Kar Wai" in Notebook Feature (19 March 2021) https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/5-questions-for-wong-kar-wai

People, Way, World, Idea

“[N]othing gains weight but by the addition of matter, nor loses it but by its subtraction—so inseparably are matter and weight united, as has been shewn above in the sixth essay.”

John Rey (1583–1645) French chemist

Art. XI. A Translation of Rey's Essays on the Calcination of Metals, &c. (1822), Essay XV. Air dimishes in weight in three ways. The balance is deceitful, the means of remedying that.

“Any social democrat, no matter their intentions, will always find it easier to move to the right than to the left. ON one side lie guarantees of stability from powerful interests, on the other capital strikes and stubborn resistance.”

Bhaskar Sunkara (1989) American writer

Source: The Socialist Manifesto (2019), p.221

Lie

“I'm extremely gratified that people have heard and are taking ownership of Black Lives Matter. People now know that in their respective industries and countries, they have the responsibility to ensure that Black people are respected, protected and affirmed.”

Opal Tometi (1984) Nigerian–American writer, strategist and community organizer

Source: Black Lives Matter Was Always Designed to Be a Global Movement, Vice] (7 July 2020)

Country, People

“I think if you're meant to do something, no matter what, you'll always get there and I think you'll find your path, no matter what.”

Alessia Cara (1996) Canadian singer

Interview with Universal Music Korea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI68Ue0sPfo (October 2018)

Thinking

“Communism is nothing but a grotesque distortion of true Socialist thought. We and we alone could become the genuine Socialists in Germany, or for that matter, in Europe.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Source: Letter to Count E. Von Reventlow (mid 1920s), quoted in Joseph Goebbels: A Biography https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.185382/2015.185382.Joseph-Goebbels_djvu.txt, Curt Riess, Hollis and Carter, London (1949) p. 37

Communication

“The lie that crossed our minds that African Gods are small Gods, thank our Gods that they were not refered to as Satan but rather Gods. The truth of the matter is that we have many Gods unlike the colonizer -Edy kasawuli”

Edykasawuli7

God, Truth, Lie

“Wealth won’t give you satisfaction, creating a good product that’s well received by users is what matters most.”

Ma Huateng (1971) Chinese internet entrepreneur

"TC Disrupt Beijing: A Fireside Chat With Tencent CEO Pony Ma" in Techcrunch (31 October 2011) https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/30/tc-disrupt-beijing-a-fireside-chat-with-tencent-ceo-pony-ma/

Wealth

“We are fighting to make sure that no country, neither today nor tomorrow, is denied funding based on an arbitrary and non-transparent mechanism. This is a matter of fundamental trust on which the European law is based.”

Mateusz Morawiecki (1968) Prime Minister of Poland

"In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine" https://www.gov.pl/web/iceland/interview-with-polish-prime-minister-mateusz-morawiecki-in-frankfurter-allgemeine (3 December 2020)

Law, Country, Fight

“But no one, no matter how intelligent, could make good inferences from bad data.”

Charles Sheffield book Transcendence

Source: The Heritage Universe, Transcendence (1992), Chapter 11 (p. 126)

Intelligence

“As you can tell at this crucial point, in life, it is only the present moment that matters to us and not the past events.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Past, Life

“Asking for advice on important matter, simply means that you don't want to do it in the first place.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Charity is any kind act. No matter how little it may appear before others.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Appearance

“It doesn't matter what you expected, but you must accept what reality offers to you at the end.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Reality

“It seems like we can’t experience reality no matter how hard we try. Because illusion is always waiting at the end of the tunnel.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Waiting, Reality

“Matter comes before the mind. Simply, because there is no mind without having the brain in the first place. However, I used the mind over matter; to come to this final conclusion.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“No matter how big the size of the sun may appear to your imagination, but it will still fit into the scope of your eye.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Imagination, Sun, Appearance

“The truth is that, reality matter more than imaginary things—Your perceptions and concepts of the world doesn't contribute anything to anyone.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Truth, Reality, World

“If it is beneficial or helpful, then it must be good for the majority; no matter if it hurts you. Individualism must be put to death and allow the majority to prevail.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Hurt, Death, Help

“Of course, every organ in your body matters. Except your feet and your hands. You can still live without them. They are part of you, but not the real YOU.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Parting

“Respect must be given voluntarily, no matter if you are an elder or a leader, you cannot take it by force.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Since we believe that there is no one who is perfect, we can easily claim that no one is innocent either. It's just a matter of time.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Time, Perfection

“We learn best by making mistakes. At the end of the day, practice is what matters the most.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Learning

“It's one thing to talk about lack of diversity and lack of representation. But that doesn't matter if you're not good at what you're supposed to be doing.”

Daniel Dae Kim (1968) American actor

"Is There Anything 'Insurgent' Star Daniel Dae Kim Can't Do?" in NBC Asian America (24 March 2015) https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/ddk-diversity-media-america-n320081

“A tax increase is still a tax increase, no matter what you call it.”

Eli Bebout (1946) American politician and businessman

As quoted in Casper Star-Tribune https://archive.ph/7h4Fk (March 27, 1994)

“Everything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does. The merest spark may set all Europe in a blaze, but though all Europe be set in a blaze twenty times over, the world will wag itself right again.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Sparks
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy

Time, Thinking, World

“Fireflies remind me of that no matter how big the troubles may be, a small lamp of hope can dispel darkness. It doesn't matter if you are small, but what matters is your belief in yourself.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Hope

“So much of the uncanny—or the holy, for that matter—is inward experience. As such, testimony about it tends to be tainted. People lie. People delude themselves, or others. People are swayed or frightened or convinced they have seen things they have not. People are, frankly, sometimes simply mad.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book The Hallowed Hunt

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Hallowed Hunt (2005), Chapter 15 (pp. 263-264)

People, Lie, Madness

“But theatre is so dominated by men that no matter what kind of sheltered bubble you’re in, you’re going to encounter sexist bullshit. That’s just always going to be an issue…”

Young Jean Lee (1974) American theatre director and playwright

On sexism still being prevalent despite calls for diversity in “An Interview with Young Jean Lee” https://www.theintervalny.com/interviews/2018/08/an-interview-with-young-jean-lee/ in The Interval (2018 Aug 14)

Men

“That anything should exist at all does seem to me a matter for the deepest awe. But whether other people feel this sort of awe, and whether they or I ought to is another question. I think we ought to.”

J. J. C. Smart (1920–2012) Australian philosopher and academic

The Existence of God, Church Quarterly Review, 156(319): 194 (1955).
Other quotes

Question, People, Thinking, Feeling

“We can summarize utilitarianism thus: Happiness is what matters, and everyone's happiness counts the same. This doesn't mean that everyone gets to be equally happy, but it does mean that no one's happiness is inherently more valuable than anyone else's.”

Joshua Greene (1974) American psychologist

Joshua Greene, Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them (2013), p. 170

Happiness

“In egalitarian societies, genes matter more.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 6 “Intelligence” (p. 86)

“All directors always try to do their best. The kind of movie on which they are working does not matter. Directors are limited by the size of the production budget and the amount of time that they have to shoot a film, but they always try to do their best within those constraints.”

Akira Kubo (1936) Japanese actor

Time

“...only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“Self-promotion is self-defeating. No matter how brilliant an individual, one becomes instinctively "leery" when he toots his own horn.”

Leonard E. Read (1898–1983) American academic

Leonard Read Journals, September 18, 1959 https://history.fee.org/leonard-read-journal/1959/leonard-e-read-journal-september-1959

“[W]e must decide which choices in our lives really matter and focus our time and energy there, letting many other opportunities pass us by.”

Barry Schwartz book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

The Paradox of Choice (2004)

Time

“[I]ncreased choice among goods and services may contribute little or nothing to the kind of freedom that counts. ...[I]t may impair freedom by taking time and energy we'd be better off devoting to other matters.”

Barry Schwartz book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

The Paradox of Choice (2004)

Freedom, Time

“The greatest lesson i have learnt from writing is that it doesn't matter what you write but your writing matters, your words need to be meaningful. Feel free to write your imagination and try to find the author hidden within you.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Imagination, Feeling

“Ultimately the galaxy, indeed the sum of the universe in its entirety, was mostly nothing; average it all out and it made a pretty good vacuum. But within the foci of matter there were the systems, the stars and planets and habitats—what a cornucopia of life was there!”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Matter (2008), Chapter 10 “A Certain Lack” (p. 167)

Star, Universe, Life

“This earth, every one of the billions of individual cells of your body, and every atom of matter, began as an intangible form of energy.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich (1938) p. 64

“The earth on which you live, you, yourself, and every other material thing are the result of evolutionary change, through which microscopic bits of matter have been organized and arranged in an orderly fashion.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich (1938) p. 63

Fashion, Change

“It doesn't matter who you are as an actor; that's really always in the script. It wouldn't make sense a lot of times to drastically change things. It would threaten to change the story arc and all that kind of stuff. I think really what an actor does is an instrument, not a player.”

Penn Badgley (1986) American actor and musician

Source: "Penn Badgley Explores Joe Goldberg's 'Primal' Parenting In You Season 3" in ELLE https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a37886117/penn-badgley-you-season-3-interview/ (18 October 2021)

Change, Time, Thinking, Sense

“Whenever a warrior decides to do something he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must know first why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them.”

Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "Journey to Ixtlan" (Chapter 8)

Way

“A warrior may choose to remain totally impassive and never act, and behave as if being impassive really mattered to him; he would be rightfully true at that too, because that would also be his controlled folly.”

Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from A Separate Reality (Chapter 6)

“No matter how outrageous a lie may be, it will be accepted if stated loudly enough and often enough.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

The Near East (1968), p. 31
General sources

Lie

“Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms such as you have named...but a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Friday

Source: Friday (1982), Chapter 23 (p. 242)

Personality, Loss

“What matters to me is the defence of France.”

Marine Le Pen (1968) French lawyer and politician

Source: Éric Zemmour overtakes Marine Le Pen in poll https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/far-right-eric-zemmour-overtakes-marine-le-pen-in-poll/

“In our daily lives, where we’re bombarded by the fake and the trivial, reading serves as a way to stop, shut out the noise of the world, and try to grab hold of something real, no matter how small.”

Maureen Corrigan (1955) American journalist and writer

Source: Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading (2005), Introduction (p. xvii)

Reading, World, Way

“Killing Unbelievers is a small matter to us.”

Al-Tabari (839–923) influential Persian scholar, historian and exegete of the Qur'an

Source: Tabari 9:69

“The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”

Steve Bannon (1953) American media executive and former White House Chief Strategist for Donald Trump

Source: According to " “Flood the zone with shit”: How misinformation overwhelmed our democracy https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation" (2018)

Way

“I’d rather die gloriously in battle than from a virus. In a way it doesn’t matter. But it kinda does.”

Paul Gosar (1958) American politician and dentist

Opining on Twitter, as quoted in * 2020-03-09
J.D. Simkins
Military Times
Congressman, a former dentist, says he’d ‘rather die gloriously in battle than from’ coronavirus.
Source: https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2020/03/09/congressman-a-former-dentist-says-hed-rather-die-gloriously-in-battle-than-from-coronavirus/

Way

“What matters is not what is being done of us, but what we do ourselves with what has been done of us.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

Original: (fr) L’important n’est pas ce qu’on fait de nous mais ce que nous faisons nous-même de ce qu’on a fait de nous.
Source: Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952), p.55

“With books or film I want to commemorate our youth and the sacrifices they made. No matter how bitter the time was, there is always something beautiful. I want to satisfy my nostalgia and hope [my work] is touching enough to move audiences who may not have the same experiences.”

Geling Yan (1958) Chinese writer and screenwriter

Source: "Turning Loss into Beauty: The Tragedies of Geling Yan" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB930264290705115630 (25 June 1999)

Nostalgia, Books, Youth, Time

“We know what identity politics does -- it divides, and it polarizes. No matter how you want to look at it, that's just the effect of it no matter how great the intentions are. We all know the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Marcellus Wiley (1974) American football player

Marcellus Wiley: NBA plan to paint 'Black Lives Matter' on courts 'not a good idea' https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/marcellus-wiley-nba-plan-to-paint-black-lives-matter-on-courts-not-a-good-idea (June 2020)

Hell

“Words, sentences, ideas, no matter how subtle or ingenious, the maddest flights of poetry, the most profound dreams, the most hallucinating visions, are but crude hieroglyphs chiseled in pain and sorrow to commemorate an event which is untransmissible.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Source: Henry Miller on Writing (1964), p. 23

Pain, Idea, Dreams

“Growing older gracefully means having a keen curiosity about learning things about the world that you didn’t know yesterday, no matter how many yesterdays you've had.”

Padma Lakshmi (1970) Indian-born American author, actress, model, television host and executive producer

Source: "Padma Lakshmi, 51, Shares Her Top Tip for ‘Growing Older Gracefully’" in Prevention https://www.prevention.com/beauty/a38151329/padma-lakshmi-aging-tip/ (4 November 2021)

Learning, World

“Whenever I watch movies, it doesn’t matter what it is, I try to I imagine somebody else doing the character.”

Madeline Carroll (1996) American actress

Source: Kevin Costner and Madeline Carroll Interview – SWING VOTE https://collider.com/kevin-costner-and-madeline-carroll-interview-swing-vote/ (July 29, 2008)

Imagination

“Creativity doesn't require much time. But creativity always needs your energy. You can't create if you're pooped or your brain is full of junk. A person who manages creativity makes sure his schedule has lots of free spaces, no matter how many priorities are looming.”

Scott Adams book The Joy of Work

Source: Books, The Joy of Work (1998)

Personality, Time

“Trying to win an argument with an irrational person is like trying to teach a cat to snorkel by providing written instructions. No matter how clear your instructions, it won't work. Your best strategy is to reduce the time you spend in that sort of situation.”

Scott Adams book The Joy of Work

Source: Books, The Joy of Work (1998)

Personality, Cats, Time

“Anything interesting in the paper? Some tragedy, some comedy, nothing that’ll matter in a hundred years.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Margarets (2007), Chapter 28, “I Am Margaret/On Tercis” (p. 238)

“Animals and plants cannot understand our business, so we have denied that they can understand their own. What we call inorganic matter cannot understand the animals' and plants' business, we have therefore denied that it can understand anything whatever.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Organic and Inorganic
Source: The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VI - Mind and Matter

Understanding, Business, Animals

“If both China and Russia were liberal democracies, I don’t think we would be having conversations about great power competition. So I believe that regime type does matter, and the ideological dimension that comes with that regime type also plays a role in great power competition.”

Michael McFaul (1963) American academic and diplomat

"Toward a “Grander Strategy of Containing Putin’s Russia”: Ambassador Michael McFaul on Engagement and Containment in a New Era of Great Power Competition" in The Yale Review of International Studies http://yris.yira.org/comments/5314 (June 2021)

Democracy, Thinking

“Start with whatever you have, there is something in your hand no matter how small.”

Omotola Jalade Ekeinde (1978) Nigerian actress and singer

“One main challenge of this research is to properly enumerate the things that matter and then to assign them weights, weights that presumably varied with time and place.”

Bruce Gilley (1966) researcher

Source: The Case for Colonialism: A Response to My Critics, Page 17-18 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352039835_The_Case_for_Colonialism_A_Response_to_My_Critics The case for colonialism, Gilley, 2017

Time

“Dad and Mom have passed away, but their teachings are deeply ingrained in my mind. I will never bring disgrace to them and their glory. I can bear the suffering no matter how great it is”

Bo Xilai (1949) former Politburo member of the Communist Party of China

Source: "Disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai anticipated prison in letter to family" in CNN https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/19/world/asia/china-bo-xilai-letter/index.html (23 September 2013)

Suffering, Moms

“My own answer to the contrarian question is that most people think the future of the world will be defined by globalization, but the truth is that technology matters more. ... In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable.”

Peter Thiel book Zero to One

Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=Owc2nQEACAAJ&pg=PA8 pp. 8–9
Zero to One (2014)

Question, Future, People, Truth

“We hope and pray so that the political situation becomes clearer, to have better balance on behalf of the institutions on this delicate subject, in matters of faith and freedom of religious minorities.”

Murphy Pakiam (1938) Catholic archbishop

Source: The Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur: "On the word Allah, a politicized case: the term will continue to be used in liturgies" http://www.fides.org/en/news/34489-ASIA_MALAYSIA_The_Archbishop_of_Kuala_Lumpur_On_the_word_Allah_a_politicized_case_the_term_will_continue_to_be_used_in_liturgies (14 October 2013)

Faith, Freedom, Hope

“It makes no difference to us what your religion is because we believe that as humanity we are all one. Thus, no matter what a person's belief we should love and respect each other.”

Mirza Masroor Ahmad (1950) spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

Others

Religion, Personality, Love

“There were clear class divisions among the protestors: the upper-class ones stood back and gave the orders, while the lower-class ones did the actual work. Some things didn’t change, no matter how many worlds you visited.”

Genevieve Cogman (1972) novelist and game designer

Source: The Lost Plot (2017), Chapter 17 (p. 215)

World, Change

“No matter how the conomy and sociology of the neighbouring sectors of the Galaxy changes, there was always an elite; and it is always the characteristic of an elite that it possesses leisure as the great reward of its elite-hood.”

Isaac Asimov book Second Foundation

Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Second Foundation (1953), Chapter 12 "Lord"

Change

“[Our policy] has always been to deal first with matters which are easiest to resolve and leave the most difficult ones until last.”

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) Holy Roman Emperor

“It is only a matter of weeks before Omicron is dominant here in Germany.”

Olaf Scholz (1958) German politician, federal minister of finance and vice chancellor

Source: Olaf Scholz cited in: " Germany agrees new contact limits to curb COVID-19 https://www.thestar.com.my/news/world/2021/12/22/germany-agrees-new-contact-limits-to-curb-covid-19" in The Star, 22 December 2021.

“The end of a matter is better than its beginning; patience of spirit is better than haughtiness of spirit.”

book Bible

Source: Ecclesiastes 7:8

Patience

“It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a 'higher standard of living than any have ever known.' It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival... It is a matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry.”

Buckminster Fuller book Critical Path

Source: From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)

Selfishness

“Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn't matter. Cold or warm. Tired or well-rested. Despised or honored. Dying . . . or busy with other assignments.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Hays translation
Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VI, 2

Business

“Without the prior pacification of Italy, it could happen that as soon as I leave to succer you, Venice, Florence, Ferrara and Francesco Sforza will ally together, pull all their resources and invite the French to support them… Since I will need to take with me to Germany the army besieging Florence, we need a swift decision by His Holiness in this matter.”

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) Holy Roman Emperor

Support, Decision

“You know that my ancestors were the most christian emperors of the great nation of Germany, the catholic kings of Spain, the archdukes of Austria, and the dukes of Burgundy, who all were, until death, faithful sons of the Roman Church...I am therefore resolved to maintain everything which these my forebears have established to the present…and to settle this matter I will use all my dominions and possessions, my friends, my body, my blood, my life, and my soul. It would be a disgrace for you and me, the illustrious and renowned nation of Germany, privileged and pre-eminent as protector and defender of the Catholic faith, if heresy, or even just the suspicion of heresy, and the degradation of the Christian religion were to return to the hearts of men in our time to our perpetual dishonour.”

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) Holy Roman Emperor

Diet of Worms (1521)
Source: *Detlef Ploese and Guenther Vogler, eds., Buch der Reformation. Eine Auswahl zeitgenössischer Zeugnisse (1476-1555). Berlin: Union Verlag, 1989, pp. 245-53

Soul, Life, Death, Men

“Technology is nature without the human being. It is abstract nature, reduced to itself, delivered over to itself, exalting and expressing itself on its own. It develops in such a way that all the virtualities and potentialities within it must be actualized, for them and for what they are, for their own sake, so that everything is done that can be done, that is to say, everything that nature can become. It is a matter of making gold, going to the moon, building self-guiding and self-monitoring missiles that can decide on the moment to self-destruction – and destroy us. Technology is alchemy; it is the self-fulfillment of nature in place of the self-fulfillment of the life that we are. It is barbarism, the new barbarism of our time, in place of culture. Inasmuch as it puts the prescriptions and regulations of life out of play, it is not simply barbarism in its most extreme and inhumane form that has ever been known – it is sheer madness.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Michel Henry, Barbarism, Continuum, 2012, p. 52
Books on Culture and Barbarism, Barbarism (1987)

Madness, Nature, Life, Time

“Our people humanized the violent, inhumane slave plantation society that the British colonialists had established, (but) we are still faced with the insidious nature of a culture that is intended to dehumanize black people wherever black or blackness is found, and our parliaments therefore, while we shall be in the vanguard of removing all laws of discrimination, it is the mental emancipation that shall forever always matter.”

Mia Mottley (1965) prime minister of Barbados

Mia Mottley (2021) cited in: " Mia Mottley: Barbados’ first female leader on a mission to transform island https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/03/mia-mottley-barbados-first-female-leader-mission-to-transform-island" in The Guardian, 3 December 2021.

People, Law, Nature

“The truth is, distributing intimate photos with the intent to publish them is a crime, and the perpetrator should be punished to the full extent of the law. I have notified Capitol Police, who are investigating it, and therefore will have no further comment on the matter.”

Katie Hill (politician) (1987) former U.S. Representative from California

Source: "Rep. Katie Hill threatens legal action after another conservative outlet publishes her nude photo" https://www.salon.com/2019/10/25/rep-katie-hill-threatens-legal-action-after-another-conservative-outlet-publishes-her-nude-photo/, Salon (October 25, 2019)

Photo, Truth, Law

“Pure air, pure water, the inspection of unhealthy habitations, the adulteration of food, these and many kindred matters may be legitimately dealt with by the Legislature... After all, the first consideration of a minister should be the health of the people.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech to the Conservatives of Manchester (3 April 1872), quoted in Selected Speeches of the Late Right Honourable the Earl of Beaconsfield, Volume II, ed. T. E. Kebbel (1882), pp. 511-512

Food, People, Health, Water

Quotes about matter page 67

Quotes about matter
page 67