Quotes about meaning
page 48

Piet Mondrian photo

“The free placement of the means of expression is a privilege enjoyed exclusively by painting [different opinion with Theo van Doesburg]] ]. The sister arts, sculpture and architecture, are more restricted in this respect. The other arts enjoy even less scope in their employment of the means of expression.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Quote of Mondrian, c. Oct. 1917; as cited in Letters of the great artists, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963 (transl. Daphne Woodward), p. 237
1910's

Martin Heidegger photo
Adolf Hitler photo
Stanley Baldwin photo
Edie Brickell photo

“I'm not aware of too many things.
I know what I know if you know what I mean.”

Edie Brickell (1966) singer from the United States

"What I Am"
Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars (1988)

Ron White photo
Natalie Merchant photo

“speak to me
don't mislead me, the calm I feel means a storm is swelling
there's no telling where it starts or how it ends”

Natalie Merchant (1963) American singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, Blind Man's Zoo (1989), Trouble Me

John Lancaster Spalding photo
Bruce Schneier photo
Lysander Spooner photo
Quentin Crisp photo
Mao Zedong photo

“Recently there has been a falling off in ideological and political work among students and intellectuals, and some unhealthy tendencies have appeared. Some people seem to think that there is no longer any need to concern oneself with politics or with the future of the motherland and the ideals of mankind. It seems as if Marxism was once all the rage but is currently not so much in fashion. To counter these tendencies, we must strengthen our ideological and political work. Both students and intellectuals should study hard. In addition to the study of their specialized subjects, they must make progress both ideologically and politically, which means that they should study Marxism, current events and politics. Not to have a correct political point of view is like having no soul […] All departments and organizations should shoulder their responsibilities in ideological and political work. This applies to the Communist Party, the Youth League, government departments in charge of this work, and especially to heads of educational institutions and teachers.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Chapter 12 https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch12.htm; originally published in "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People" (27 February 1957), 1st pocket ed., pp. 43-44
Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (The Little Red Book)

Jan Smuts photo

“The Mountain is not merely something eternally sublime. It has a great historical and spiritual meaning for us … From it came the Law, from it came the Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount. We may truly say that the highest religion is the Religion of the Mountain.”

Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa

When he unveiled the Mountain Club War Memorial at Maclear's Beacon on the summit of Table Mountain (1923), as cited by Alan Paton in his final essay, A Literary Remembrance, published posthumously in TIME, 25 April 1988, p. 106

Parker Palmer photo
Roy A. Childs, Jr. photo
Plutarch photo
Rafael Benítez photo

“I'm sure Chelsea do not like playing Liverpool. When they are talking and talking and talking before the game it means they are worried. Maybe they're afraid?”

Rafael Benítez (1960) Spanish association football player and manager

We don't need to give away flags for our fans to wave (2012)

Aron Ra photo
Václav Havel photo
Donald A. Schön photo

“Belief in the stable state serves primarily to protect us from apprehension of the threats inherent in change. Belief in stability is a means of maintaining stability, or at any rate the illusion of stability. But the most threatening situations are those that confront us with uncertainty, and by ‘uncertainty’, I don’t mean risk, which is a probability ratio which we all know how to handle, particularly those who are managers of industry. We can deal with risk.”

Donald A. Schön (1930–1997) American academic

Donald Schon " REITH LECTURES 1970: Change and Industrial Society: Lecture 1: The Loss of the Stable State http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/radio4/transcripts/1970_reith1.pdf" at the BBC, 15 November 1970 – Radio 4; cited in: Richard Duane Carter (1981) Future challenges of management education. p. 102

Daniel Handler photo
George Eliot photo

“Earlier the films were given an 'A' certificate simply because they had lots of violence and horror, but nowadays there are a lot of sex and double-meaning dialogues. The themes become so predominantly vulgar and we can't possibly edit out a film's theme. So how do we re-censor these films to make them U or U/A?”

On implementing a new policy under which A-rated film cannot be recut and released for television, as quoted in " Shocker! Adult Films Won't Be Re-Censored For TV! http://www.9xe.com/3574" 9xe (9 July 2015)

John Gray photo
Emma Goldman photo
Colette photo
Nina Paley photo
Margaret Thatcher photo

“My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day's work for an honest day's pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

The News of the World (20 September 1981), quoted in Chris Ogden, Maggie: An Intimate Portrait of a Woman in Power (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), p. 342.
First term as Prime Minister

Rollo May photo
Daniel Defoe photo
Tina Fey photo
John Dryden photo
Elvis Costello photo
Larry the Cable Guy photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo

“The use of pictures was creeping into the church already in the third century, because the council of Elvira in Spain, held in 305, especially forbids to have any picture in the Christian churches. These pictures were generally representations of some events, either of the New or of the Old Testament, and their object was to instruct the common and illiterate people in sacred history, whilst others were emblems, representing some ideas connected with the doctrines of Christianity. It was certainly a powerful means of producing an impression upon the senses and the imagination of the vulgar, who believe without reasoning, and admit without reflection; it was also the most easy way of converting rude and ignorant nations, because, looking constantly on the representations of some fact, people usually end by believing it. This iconographic teaching was, therefore, recommended by the rulers of the church, as being useful to the ignorant, who had only the understanding of eyes, and could not read writings. Such a practice was, however, fraught with the greatest danger, as experience has but too much proved. It was replacing intellect by sight. Instead of elevating man towards God, it was bringing down the Deity to the level of his finite intellect, and it could not but powerfully contribute to the rapid spread of a pagan anthropomorphism in the church.”

Walerian Krasiński (1795–1855) historian

Introductory dissertation to John Calvin's Treatise on Relics (1854)

Joseph Hayne Rainey photo

“A remedy is needed to meet the evil now existing in most of the southern states, but especially in that one which I have the honor to represent in part, the State of South Carolina. The enormity of the crimes constantly perpetrated there finds no parallel in the history of this republic in her very darkest days. There was a time when the early settlers of New England were compelled to enter the fields, their homes, even the very sanctuary itself, armed to the full extent of their means. While the people were offering their worship to God within those humble walls their voices kept time with the tread of the sentry outside. But, sir, it must be borne in mind that at the time referred to civilization had but just begun its work upon this continent. The surroundings were unpropitious, and as yet the grand capabilities of this fair land lay dormant under the fierce tread of the red man. But as civilization advanced with its steady and resistless sway it drove back those wild cohorts and compelled them to give way to the march of improvement. In course of time superior intelligence made its impress and established its dominion upon this continent. That intelligence, with an influence like that of the sun rising in the east and spreading its broad rays like a garment of light, gave life and gladness to the dark.”

Joseph Hayne Rainey (1832–1887) politician

1871, Speech on the the Ku Klux Klan Bill of 1871 (1 April 1871)

Thomas Carlyle photo

“A spontaneous, passionate, yet just, true-meaning man! Full of wild faculty, fire and light; of wild worth, all uncultured; working out his life-task in the depths of the Desert there.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Mark Steyn photo
Francis Bacon photo
George W. Bush photo

“Just remember the guy who slit Danny Pearl's throat is in Gitmo, and now they're doing it on TV… In order to be an effective president… when you say something you have to mean it… You've got to kill them.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

"George W. Bush Bashes Obama on Middle East" http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-27/george-w-bush-bashes-obama-on-middle-east, by Josh Rogin, Bloomberg View (26 April 2015)
2010s, 2015

Rose Wilder Lane photo
Syama Prasad Mookerjee photo
Michelangelo Antonioni photo
Michelle Obama photo
Jack Vance photo
Mark Rothko photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo

“The "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence didn't mean radical individualism. It meant the pursuit of virtue.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, Interview with Peter Robinson (2009)

Herbert Read photo
John Hagee photo

“God says in Jeremiah 16 — "Behold I will bring them the Jewish people again unto their land that I gave unto their fathers" — that would be Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - "Behold I will send for many fishers and after will I send for many hunters. And they the hunters shall hunt them" — that will be the Jews — "from every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks." If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust — you can't see that. So think about this — I will send fishers and I will send hunters. A fisher is someone who entices you with a bait. How many of you know who Theodore Herzl was? How many of you don't have a clue who he was? Woo, sweet God! Theodore Herzl is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew that at the turn of the 19th century said, "this land is our land, God wants us to live there". So he went to the Jews of Europe and said, "I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel". So few went, Herzl went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the Holocaust. Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says — Jeremiah righty? — "they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks", meaning: there's no place to hide. And that will be offensive to some people. Well, dear heart, be offended: I didn't write it. Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said, "my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel". Today Israel is back in the land and they are at Ezekiel 37 and 8. They are physically alive but they're not spiritually alive. Now how is God going to cause the Jewish people to come spiritually alive and say, "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is God"?”

John Hagee (1940) American pastor, theologian and saxophonist

late 2005 sermon at Cornerstone Church, quoted in

Susan Neiman photo
Jared Diamond photo
Babe Ruth photo

“I didn't mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Revisiting the May 1922 dirt-throwing, fan-chasing incident, in The Babe Ruth Story; reproduced in "Babe Ruth Quotes" http://www.baseball-almanac.com/quotes/quoruth.shtml at Baseball Almanac

Mahatma Gandhi photo

“For me the voice of God, of Conscience, of Truth or the Inner Voice or ‘the still small Voice’ mean one and the same thing. I saw no form. I have never tried, for I have always believed God to be without form. One who realizes God is freed from sin for ever…. But what I did hear was like a Voice from afar and yet quite near. It was as unmistakable as some human voice definitely speaking to me, and irresistible. I was not dreaming at the time I heard the Voice. The hearing of the Voice was preceded by a terrific struggle within me. Suddenly the Voice came upon me. I listened, made certain that it was the Voice, and the struggle ceased. I was calm. The determination was made accordingly, the date and the hour of the fast were fixed…. Could I give any further evidence that it was truly the Voice that I heard and that it was not an echo of my own heated imagination? I have no further evidence to convince the sceptic. He is free to say that it was all self-delusion or hallucination. It may well have been so. I can offer no proof to the contrary. But I can say this — that not the unanimous verdict of the whole world against me could shake me from the belief that what I heard was the true voice of God.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Harijan (1933, July 8); also in Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Vol. 61), and in The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi (Prabhu and Rao, eds., 1967, pp. 33-34)
1930s

Ezra Pound photo
Robert Hunter (author) photo
Henry Taylor photo
Noel Gallagher photo
Pierre Louis Maupertuis photo
Richard Nixon photo

“Being controversial in politics is inevitable. If an individual wants to be a leader and isn't controversial, that means he never stood for anything. In the world today, there are not many good choices — only choices between the half-good and the less half-good.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

Cited in Nick Thimmesch's "An interview with Nixon: 'Defeated, but not finished'" (Chicago Tribune (11 December 1978)
1970s

Moritz Schlick photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Richard Stallman photo
H. Havelock Ellis photo

“"Charm"—which means the power to effect work without employing brute force—is indispensable to women. Charm is a woman's strength just as strength is a man's charm.”

H. Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British physician, writer, and social reformer

The Task of Social Hygiene, ch. 3 HTTP://BOOKS.GOOGLE.COM/books?id=nAoAAAAAYAAJ&q=%22charm+which+means+the+power+to+effect+work+without+employing+brute+force+is+indispensable+to+women+charm+is+a+woman%27s+strength+just+as+strength+is+a+man%27s+charm%22&pg=PA81#v=onepage

Will Eisner photo
Giorgio de Chirico photo

“.. can you [contemporary painters] ever get close, even vaguely, to the solidity, the transparency, the lyric strength of colour, to the clarity, the mystery, the emotion of any of the paintings of Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Dürer, Holbein or of young Raphael? Friends, have you ever realized that with the oil colours used today this is absolutely impossible?... In the museums of Europe I have observed the work of the Flemish painters at length – those earlier, later as well as contemporary to the [brothers] Van Eycks – and I am convinced that the above mentioned brothers were not the discoverers of oil paint in its true sense, as is held today, but that what they did was introduce oil in emulsion with other substances, especially live and fossil resins, into so-called oil tempera emulsion, which was already known in the Flanders, to enable them through the use of veiling to give a greater finish, cleanliness and strength of colour to their painting.
'These oils which are their tempera' said Vasari, speaking of the Flemish [painters] in his Life of Antonello; and without doubt he was alluding to Flemish oil tempera emulsion, but it is sure, absolutely sure, that.... we are dealing with.... a tempera based mixture (egg, glue, resin, tempera etc) in which oil was only used as a means of unity and for the finish of the painting.”

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) Italian artist

Quote from De Chirico's text 'Pro tempera oratio', c. 1920; from 'PRO TEMPERA ORATIO' http://www.fondazionedechirico.org/wp-content/uploads/475-480Metafisica5_6.pdf, p. 475
1920s and later

Edmund Burke photo

“There is nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 261
Undated

Frederick Douglass photo
Bill O'Reilly photo
Saul D. Alinsky photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Edward Thomas photo
Max Frisch photo

“Basically America (the USA) is not a warmongering but simply a commercial society: war as the continuation of business by other means.”

Max Frisch (1911–1991) Swiss playwright and novelist

Drafts for a Third Sketchbook (2013)

Adolf Hitler photo
Mark Satin photo
Koila Nailatikau photo
Thomas Little Heath photo
John Updike photo

“I was approached to do a film script for the Beatles. I said it would have to be an absolutely original script. Paul McCartney said do whatever you like. I said that means you'll never be able to do it.”

Joe Orton (1933–1967) English playwright and author

Interview with Barry Hanson, programme notes of Peter Gill's Royal Court production of The Erpingham Camp and The Ruffian on the Stair http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/parade/abj76/PG/pieces/joe_orton.shtml (June 1967)

Colin Wilson photo
Peter F. Drucker photo
Johannes Kepler photo

“God gives every animal the means of saving its life—why object if he gives astrology to the astronomer?”

Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer

Vol. VIII, p. 705
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia, ed. Christian Frisch (1858)

Max Scheler photo

“The “noble” person has a completely naïve and non-reflective awareness of his own value and of his fullness of being, an obscure conviction which enriches every conscious moment of his existence, as if he were autonomously rooted in the universe. This should not be mistaken for “pride.” Quite on the contrary, pride results from an experienced diminution of this “naive” self-confidence. It is a way of “holding on” to one’s value, of seizing and “preserving” it deliberately. The noble man’s naive self-confidence, which is as natural to him as tension is to the muscles, permits him calmly to assimilate the merits of others in all the fullness of their substance and configuration. He never “grudges” them their merits. On the contrary: he rejoices in their virtues and feels that they make the world more worthy of love. His naive self-confidence is by no means “compounded” of a series of positive valuations based on specific qualities, talents, and virtues: it is originally directed at his very essence and being. Therefore he can afford to admit that another person has certain “qualities” superior to his own or is more “gifted” in some respects—indeed in all respects. Such a conclusion does not diminish his naïve awareness of his own value, which needs no justification or proof by achievements or abilities. Achievements merely serve to confirm it. On the other hand, the “common” man (in the exact acceptation of the term) can only experience his value and that of another if he relates the two, and he clearly perceives only those qualities which constitute possible differences. The noble man experiences value prior to any comparison, the common man in and through a comparison. For the latter, the relation is the selective precondition for apprehending any value. Every value is a relative thing, “higher” or “lower,” “more” or “less” than his own. He arrives at value judgments by comparing himself to others and others to himself.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1973), pp. 54-55

Georg Brandes photo