Quotes about matter
page 68

“...the constitution of the universe may be such that the human self and the substance that things [are] made out of, the spatial matter or whatever you call it, are much more inextricably related than we realized.”

Christopher Alexander (1936) architect

Source: Debate with Peter Eisenman at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, 17 November 1982.

Universe

“It's the same the whole world over.
Every year we get a little bit older.
No matter what you say, no matter what you do
Rich or poor, you know it's gonna happen to you.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"The Same the Whole World Over" (song) Song lyrics Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "The Same the Whole World Over" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoBdc1uUxiA (song on YouTube)

World

“No matter how I try
I just can't say goodbye.
No matter what you say
looks like I'm here to stay.
No matter where I go
I don't know if you know
but everywhere we've been
I'm kept in quarantine.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"No Matter How I Try" (song) Gilbert O'Sullivan, "No Matter How I Try" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gM6bo-QhS0 (song on YouTube) (+ Live performance on Top of the Pops. On YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBqEgnBNKDI (+ Live performance in Japan, 1993. On YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsQu04bOm9I Song lyrics

“I've never known a girl lovelier than you
If I did I would be lying - that I wouldn't do
Come on, have fun, mmm, make my day tonight
Nothing really matters when you are in love
It's the only institution I'm not weary of
Don't be lonely, mmm, make my day tonight”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"Make My Day" (song) Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Make My Day" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTQctCSqNpk (song on YouTube) Song lyrics

Girl, Lying, Love

“When I become a character in a movie or drama … I can think about the character only and not the complicated matters of my own life. I feel ecstasy in those moments and it’s what keeps me going as an actor. It’s not about the money, it’s not about the honor.”

Gong Yoo (1979) South Korean actor

Source: "Gong Yoo on becoming South Korea’s leading man" in CNN https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/28/asia/gong-yoo-talk-asia/index.html (30 August 2017)

Money, Thinking, Life, Feeling

“Does female orgasm have an evolutionary function? Ironically, scientists have yet to come to a satisfying conclusion about this matter.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: The Ape That Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve (2018), p. 58

“All designs are wrong, it's just a matter of how wrong.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Source: Said while giving tour of Starbase to Tim Dodd, July 30, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw

“A number of abstract ideas, of which we are as a matter of fact unconscious. We do not see them, but we see other things through them.”

T. E. Hulme (1883–1917) English Imagist poet and critic

Source: Speculations (Essays, 1924)

Idea

“I have not a girl that's mine
I have not a friend
I have not got a place to live
Indeed it seems the end
But it ain't, for me
as I've got myself, which matters most
throughout the life I lead.
I have not a penny in my pocket, and if soon
I should be found just as badly broken
I won't gloom
cos it ain't, for me
as I've got myself which matters most
throughout the life I lead”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"It Ain't For Me" (song) Song lyrics Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "It Ain't For Me" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tccchTER_nY (song on YouTube)

Girl, Life

“The most generous of critics, if he is to be discriminating and just, cannot, let me say again, allow that any verse which is profoundly obscure or utterly unmusical, no matter how intellectual in substance, deserves the appellation of poetry. But on a very thin thread of meaning poetry, or a very fair imitation of it, may be hung by the aid of musical sound.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: The Bridling of Pegasus (1910), "The Essentials of Great Poetry", p. 7.

Music

“Beware you are not a fiery, persecuting enthusiast. Do not imagine that God has called you (just contrary to the spirit of Him you style your Master) to destroy men’s lives, and not to save them. Never dream of forcing men into the ways of God. Think yourself, and let think. Use no constraint in matters of religion. Even those who are farthest out of the way never compel to come in by any other means than reason, truth, and love.”

John Wesley book Sermons on Several Occasions

1770s, Sermons on Several Occasions (1771)
Source: Sermon 37 "The Nature of Enthusiasm"

Imagination, Thinking, Love, Men

“Nature shouldn’t be able to do this, Sunday thought. It shouldn’t be able to produce something that resembled the work of directed intelligence, something artful, when the only factors involved were unthinking physics and obscene, spendthrift quantities of time. Time to lay down the sediments, in deluge after deluge, entire epochs in the impossibly distant past when Mars had been both warm and wet, a world deluded into thinking it had a future. Time for cosmic happenstance to hurl a fist from the sky, punching down through these carefully superimposed layers, drilling through these carefully superimposed layers, drilling the geological chapters like a bullet through a book. And then yesterday more time—countless millions of years—for wind and dust to work their callous handiwork, scouring and abrading, wearing the exposed layers back at subtly different rates depending on hardness and chemistry, util these deliberate-looking right-angled steps and contours began to assume grand and imperial solidity, rising from the depths like the stairways of the gods.
Awe-inspiring, yesterday. Sometimes it was entirely right and proper to be awed. And recognising the physics in these formations, the hand of time and matter and the nuclear forces underpinning all things, did not lessen that feeling. What was she, ultimately, but the end product of physics and matter? And what was her art but the product of physics and matter working on itself?”

Alastair Reynolds book Blue Remembered Earth

Source: Blue Remembered Earth (2012), Chapter 17 (pp. 292-293)

Dependency, God, Books, World

“Although it is not thought or some other form of knowledge, although it is not the truth of the world, that gives access to the Revelation of God, at least a single possibility persist, already mentioned as a simple matter of fact and now rendered unimpeachable. Access to God, understood as his self-revelation according to a phenomenality proper to Him, is not susceptible of being produced except where this self-revelation is produced and in the way self-revelation does so. There where God originally arrives in himself, in the phenomenalization of phenomenality that is his own and is thus like the self-phenomenalization of this phenomenality proper – there alone is access to God. It is not that thought is lacking and so we cannot accede to the Revelation of God. Quite the contrary, it is only when thought defaults, because the truth of the world is absent, that what is at stake be achieved: the self-revelation of God – the self-phenomenalization of pure phenomenality against the background of a phenomenality that is not that of the world.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Books on Religion and Christianity, I am the Truth. Toward a philosophy of Christianity (1996)
Source: Michel Henry, I am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, translated by Susan Emanuel, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 27

Knowledge, God, Truth, Way

“The pandemic has been a lesson for all of us. It taught us what really matters. Our priority should be to find happiness in every little thing instead of materialism. Materialistic things should not matter more than this. Face the challenges instead of running away.”

Nitin Pujari (1990) Indian spiritual leader , Pujari at Salasar Bala ji Rajasthan

During the pandemic in India
Source: https://www.5darianews.com/news/359376-Nitin-Pujari-The-power-of-positivity-gratitude-and-prayer-during-the-pandemic

Happiness

“The thing about having a mental breakdown is that no matter how obvious it is that you’re having one, it is somehow not obvious to you.”

Tara Westover book Educated

Source: Educated (2018), Chapter 37, “Gambling for Redemption” (p. 307)

“Half dead’s a lot worse than dead, when you know you’re gonna die in another three, six days no matter what anyone else does.”

Samuel R. Delany book They Fly at Çiron

Source: They Fly at Çiron (1993), Chapter 6 (p. 166)

Dead

“Humanity is a vampire's greatest weakness. No matter how easy it is to turn it off, it keeps trying to fight its way back in”

movie Vampire diaries

This TV show has changed my life and the perspective I have on my life as a vampire.

Fight, Way

“China makes its observation and conclusion based independently- based on the merits of the matter itself.”

Qin Gang (1966) politician

"Transcript: Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Qin Gang on Face the Nation" in CBS https://www.cbsnews.com/news/qin-gang-chinese-ambassador-face-the-nation-03-20-2022/ (20 March 2022)

“It is a private matter [sexuality], but if there are opportunities to say something . . . I wonder if, if it would be beneficial to someone else, that responsibility is on you. It’s complicated.”

Jonathan Bailey (1988) British actor

"Jonathan Bailey: From Broadchurch to the West End: the star of Sondheim’s smash hit Company in The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/from-broadchurch-to-the-west-end-the-star-of-sondheims-smash-hit-company-mjppfprkr (31 October 2018)

“Democrat or Republican. It does not matter. War is the raison d’état of the state. Extravagant military expenditures are justified in the name of “national security.””

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

The nearly $40 billion allocated for Ukraine, most of it going into the hands of weapons manufacturers such as Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, is only the beginning. Military strategists, who say the war will be long and protracted, are talking about infusions of $4 or $5 billion in military aid a month to Ukraine. We face existential threats. But these do not count. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion. The proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Ukraine alone gets more than double that amount. Pandemics and the climate emergency are afterthoughts. War is all that matters. This is a recipe for collective suicide.
2022, "No Way Out but War" (May 23, 2022)

War

“The leader of any country should be aware that in scientific matters there is no authority above the sovereignty of science.”

Ricardo Galvão (1947) Brazilian physicist and engineer

Ricardo Galvão. Ousted Head of Science Agency Criticizes Brazil’s Denial of Deforestation Data, 2019-08-20, 10.1029/2019EO131399, Showstack, R. https://eos.org/articles/ousted-head-of-science-agency-criticizes-brazils-denial-of-deforestation-data,

Country, Science

“I have never believed in coincidences, and my career path in journalism was definitely not a matter of chance, either. I always entrust to God's Providence the key matters of my life.”

Magdalena Wolińska-Riedi (1979) Polish-Vatican journalist and television presenter

What it’s like to live in the Vatican: The wife of a Swiss Guard tells us https://aleteia.org/2018/06/18/what-its-like-to-live-in-the-vatican-the-wife-of-a-swiss-guard-tells-us/ (18 June 2018)

God, Chance, Life

“Everyone matters more than you except to yourself.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

“It doesn’t matter whether we consider ourselves "secular" or "religious": in some fundamental way, we're all reaching for the heavens.”

Susan Cain (1968) self-help writer

Bittersweet Introduction at p. xxviii

Way

“No matter what I do I could never become an English man. If you paint stripes on a donkey, that doesn’t make it a zebra.”

Imran Khan (1952) Prime Minister of Pakistan

Quoted while explaining about his early days in Britain, Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s ‘donkey’ reference creates waves on Twitter https://www.firstpost.com/world/watch-former-pakistan-pm-imran-khans-donkey-reference-creates-waves-on-twitter-10644561.html (May 7, 2022)

Painting

“The thing that's so interesting about being alive is that you're all in. No matter what you do you're all in; this is gonna kill you. So I think you might as well play the most magnificent game you can while you're waiting—because, do you have anything better to do, really?”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

"2017 Maps of Meaning 12: Final: The Divinity of the Individual" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V1eMvGGcXQ&t=0s Lectures

Game, Waiting, Thinking

“We have to take care of the cure. That will make the problem worse, no matter what. No matter what. We know what has to be done. We know you have to — you're tired of hearing the phrase, you got to flatten that curve where it's going up like this, people getting it, and then it comes down.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2020, March 2020

People, Problem

“What matters in politics above all, is not what one says, but what one does.”

Francis Parker Yockey (1917–1960) American writer

The Proclamation of London (1949)

“It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) by Ursula K. Le Guin, in Chapter 15 "To the Ice"
See also https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hemingways-stolen-quotati_b_6868994.
Misattributed
Variant: It is good to have an end to a journey, but it is the journey that matters, in the end.

“I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter. With the laugh comes the tears and in developing motion pictures or television shows, you must combine all the facts of life — drama, pathos and humor.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

Source: Year unknown, published in 2004, How to Be Like Walt : Capturing the Magic Every Day of Your Life (2004), Ch. 1 : It All Started with a Boy, p. 16

Tear, Life

“Courage is the main quality of leadership, in my opinion, no matter where it is exercised. Usually it implies some risk — especially in new undertakings. Courage to initiate something and to keep it going, pioneering an adventurous spirit to blaze new ways, often, in our land of opportunity.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

As quoted in The Magic of Teamwork (1997) by Pat Williams
Year unknown, published in 1990s

Courage, Exercises, Way

“Whether a matter is great or small, its importance and weight depend on whose hands it is in.”

Witness Lee (1905–1997) Chinese Christian preacher

Character, of Witness Lee - By Living Stream Ministry, ISBN 978-0-87083-322-9

Dependency

“You tried to love me I know you did,
you racked your brain trying,
to the point of lying,
but matters of the heart
can't be arranged,
and nothing I do can bring a change.”

Marian Renta

Music lyrics, Candy-coated Pill (2022) —"Shot in the Dark"

Heart, Lying, Love, Change

“The picture of the world that's presented to the public has only the remotest relation to reality. The truth of the matter is buried under edifice after edifice of lies upon lies.”

Noam Chomsky Media Control

Quotes 1990s, 1990–1994, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, (1991)

Truth, Reality, World

“Flow: a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934) Hungarian American psychologist

The Psychology of optimal experience, Harper https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224927532_Flow_The_Psychology_of_Optimal_ExperienceFlow (1990)

People

“Everyone was supposed to go to parliament to work with their heads. For some, working with their heads didn't work out, so they went on to employ their fists. As an expert in this matter I can say that they didn't manage to do it very well, either.”

Vitali Klitschko (1971) Ukrainian boxer and politician

2013
Source: [У депутатов новой Рады не получается работать ни головой, ни кулаками - Кличко, https://politics.segodnya.ua/politics/U-deputatov-novoy-Rade-ne-poluchaetsya-rabotat-ni-golovoy-ni-kulakami-Klichko-408225.html, 2022-06-13, politics.segodnya.ua, ru]

“Truth is the only foundation of honour, and the surest source of a man's influence with his fellow-men. When you come across someone of whom those who know him say "so-and-so told me such and such a thing, so it must be true" you are dealing, believe me, with a man to be reckoned with. But there are other aspects of Truth not quite so obvious as those with which I have been dealing. We have been thinking about Truth as between ourselves and others. There is also, and just as important, the matter of Truth within ourselves.”

Victor Hope, 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow (1887–1952) British politician, agriculturalist and colonial administrator (1887-1952)

12 September 1936, Advice to the pupils of the Bishop Cotton School, Simla, also quoted in Speeches and Statements of the Marquess of Linlithgow, p. 19-20

Truth, Thinking, Men

“These golden matters
Of Gyges and his treasuries
Are no concern of mine.
Jealousy has no power over me,
Nor do I envy a god his work,
And I do not burn to rule.
Such things have no
Fascination for my eyes.”

Archilochus (-680–-645 BC) Ancient Greek lyric poet

Fragment 19

God, Jealousy, Envy

“Power is like matter, it has gravity, it clumps and then starts to draw more into itself.”

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer

Source: Blue Mars (1996), Chapter 4, “Green Earth” (p. 166)

Drawing

“People claiming that some fundamental right is foreign to their culture—that stinks no matter who says it, fundamentalists, patriarchs, Leninists, metanats, I don’t care who. They aren’t going to get away with it here, not if I can help it.”

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer

Source: Blue Mars (1996), Chapter 3, “A New Constitution” (pp. 128-129)

People, Help

“In the random flux of universal contingency, nothing mattered; and yet, and yet...”

Kim Stanley Robinson book Green Mars

Source: Green Mars (1993), Chapter 3, “Long Runout” (p. 125)

Universe

“Most ignorance is by choice, you know, and so ignorance is very telling about what really matters to people.”

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer

Source: Red Mars (1992), Chapter 5, “Falling into History” (p. 375)

People

“I always find it interesting to talk to students, no matter when and where. The young generation is the master of the future. Whether coming from the United States or any other country, you all represent the future of your country.”

Nguyễn Tấn Dũng (1949) Prime Minister of Vietnam

Country, Future

“I’m a late bloomer. It’s just a matter of how you evolve; of what your pace is. Hopefully, the older you get the more you grow. So, that has been my speed, the beat of my drum. I march to the beat of a different drum … you’ll pardon me for using this expression.”

Harry Dean Stanton (1926–2017) American actor, musician, and singer

Actor Harry Dean Stanton Dies at 91", by Patrick Mcdonald, HollywoodChicago.com (16 September 2017) https://www.hollywoodchicago.com/news/27911/film-news-character-actor-harry-dean-stanton-dies-at-91"Character

Speed

“Nothing can exist without ceasing to exist as the present exists only once in a lifetime.
The essence of life is the eternity of change experienced, perceived and affected by and from the consciousness of matter transpiring from the energy of life’s creations directed towards its true love(desires)”

Boukabyegga

Change, Love, Life

“You know that color does not matter to me. I want to know other things about a man. Is his word good? Does he meet his obligations? Does he do honest work? Is he brave? Will he stand up and be counted?”

Robert A. Heinlein book Farnham's Freehold

Source: Farnham's Freehold (1964), Chapter 7 (p. 115)

Color

“No matter your knowledge and position, your birth and death is once in lifetime.”

Yusuf Cornelius Otijenu

Knowledge, Birth, Death

“When you meet people, no matter what opinion you might have formed about them beforehand, why, after you meet them and see their angle and their personality, why, you can see a lot of good in all of them.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

On Leon Trotsky Saturday Evening Post (6 November 1926) - note that Rogers specifically spelled the word "dident"
Context: I bet you if I had met him and had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I never yet met a man that I dident like. When you meet people, no matter what opinion you might have formed about them beforehand, why, after you meet them and see their angle and their personality, why, you can see a lot of good in all of them.

Personality, People

“Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences — nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Entry (1977)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

Fate, Youth, Age

“When we live in a society where people genuinely feel that what matters most is the romantic partnership, we have learned that other people will value and prioritize a romantic partner above all other relationships. Therefore, you are only genuinely secure and only have leverage for getting your needs met in a relationship, if you are that person’s romantic partner.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Personality, People, Learning, Partnership

“No matter what your "should standard" would have you believe, the truth is that there is no shame in struggling.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Truth

“Nowadays, if what really matters in a production is its promotion, regardless of the musical genre, unfortunately the quality and its beauty no longer make much sense.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Al giorno d'oggi, se ciò che conta davvero in una produzione è la sua promozione, indipendentemente dal genere musicale, purtroppo la qualità e la sua bellezza non hanno più molto senso.
Source: prevale.net

Beauty, Music, Sense

“Sometimes to achieve greatness, you do, you have to cut off a little piece of yourself no matter how much it hurts, in order to grow, in order to move on. It takes courage and I admire that, you know?”

movie Legend (2015)

Hurt, Courage

“Nothing is permanent. Don't stress yourself too much, because no matter how bad the situation is … It will change.
-Engr. Abah Sule”

Engr.Abah Sule

Change

“No matter the law of change; some things never change.”

Yusuf Cornelius Otijenu

Law, Change

“The voice of justice must shout loudly for justice itself. It doesn't matter whether he is religious or not religious! It doesn't matter whether he is a minority or a majority!”

Titon Rahmawan

Justice

“Enjoy every minute of the process that leads you to goodness, to success. No matter how difficult the challenges, obstacles and trials you have to face. If you fail, try again! Fall down, get up again! When you succeed, what you have gone through will be a great story.”

Titon Rahmawan

Success

“If you persist in your ignorance, refuse to listen to advice, feel that you are always right, don't learn from the mistakes of others, feel great and arrogant, then it's only a matter of time before life kicks your ass and teaches you a lesson.”

Titon Rahmawan

Learning, Time, Life, Feeling

“Maintaining loyalty is definitely not an easy matter. But if we are able to do it, then it is the pinnacle of our appreciation of the true meaning of love.”

Titon Rahmawan

Love, Loyalty

“Mistakes and omissions are one thing to correct. We will not throw away the hard rice, as long as it is still edible. We can still turn it into fried rice. But ignorance is a different matter. Those who are ignorant and unwilling to learn can no longer be corrected.”

Titon Rahmawan

Learning

“There is not a moment in our lives that we do not go through a battle. That is the fate of humans in their wanderings in this sad world. We are forced to make choices, who we should side with and how we should act. Like it or not, we have to fight. Because those who refuse to fight will be considered cowards or losers. In the end it's not a matter of losing or winning, but at least we have fought.”

Titon Rahmawan

Fate, World, Fight, Sadness

“It doesn't work to compromise in a relationship because a person can’t give up something that they value (and thus give up what really matters to them) without experiencing pain that eventually causes disharmony in the relationship.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Pain, Personality

“We cannot stake our own fate on others, no matter how close our relationship with them.”

Titon Rahmawan

Fate

“In life what matters is who you can count on.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Nella vita ciò che conta è su chi puoi contare.
Source: prevale.net

Life

“It's easy to stay in your comfort zone. It's only a matter of time before that comfort will catch up with you and quietly kill you.”

Titon Rahmawan

Time

“Happiness is not in doing everything, but in doing what matters, and it's also a way of thinking how to face every moment that life offers, to feel good about yourself and others.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: La felicità non sta nel fare tutto, ma nel fare ciò che conta, ed è anche un modo di pensare come affrontare ogni momento che la vita offre, per stare bene con se stessi e con gli altri.
Source: prevale.net

Happiness, Thinking, Way, Life

This quote waiting for review.

“The urban allows me to explore those contradictions without falling into propagandistic or moralistic discourse; an essential matter, in my view, when it comes to literature.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Interview to José Baroja. https://grupoigneo.com/blog/entrevista-jose-baroja-literatura/

Literature

“With the right person, your presence will be all that matters.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Con la persona giusta, la tua presenza sarà tutto ciò che conta.
Source: prevale.net

Personality

“Trust is won by actions, not by words. Actions matter more than words, words are often only intentions.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: La fiducia si conquista con le azioni, non con le parole. Le azioni contano più delle parole, le parole sono spesso solo intenzioni.
Source: prevale.net

Quotes about matter page 68

Quotes about matter
page 68