Quotes about meaning (10000 quotes, page 8)

“My whole being was seeking for something still unknown which might confer meaning upon the banality of life.”

C.G. Jung book Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Life

“Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth

Behavior

“The very impulse to write springs from an inner chaos crying for order - for meaning.”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

Spring , Cry

“Anything might have been anything else and had as much meaning to it.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Source: Collected Stories

“Broadmindedness, when it means indifference to right and wrong, eventually ends in a hatred of what is right.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Life of Christ

Indifference

“Remorse.-- Never yield to remorse, but at once tell yourself: remorse would simply mean adding to the first act of stupidity a second.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Stupidity

“When people are finding meaning in things -- beware.”

Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator

Source: Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

People

“tell me what you think it means.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Thinking

“Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Interesting Times: The Play

“What do you suppose is the use of a child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning-- and a child's more imporant than a joke, I hope. You couldn't deny that, even if you tried with both hands.”

Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking-Glass

Source: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

Hope

“The time is past when music was written for a handful of aesthetes. Today vast crowds of people have come face to face with serious music and are waiting with eager impatience. Composers, take heed of this…But this does not mean that you must pander to this audience. Pandering always has an element of insincerity about it and nothing good ever came of that.”

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) Ukrainian & Russian Soviet pianist and composer

Page 106; from a notebook entry (1937).
Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences (1960)

People , Music , Time , Waiting

“For a large class of cases — though not for all — in which we employ the word meaning it can be explained thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Philosophical Investigations

§ 43, this has often been quoted as simply: The meaning of a word is its use in the language.
Philosophical Investigations (1953)

“There are a host of bad habits and inconsiderate acts which mean nothing in themselves but which are terrible as indicators of the true composition of a soul.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Es gibt eine Menge kleiner Rücksichtslosigkeiten und Unarten, die an und für sich nichts bedeuten, aber furchtbar sind als Kennzeichen der Beschaffenheit der Seele.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 38.

Soul

“White people, who for a long time live alone with Natives, get into the habit of saying what they mean, because they have no reason or opportunity for dissimulation, and when they meet again their conversation keeps the Native tone.”

Karen Blixen book Out of Africa

Out of Africa (1937)

People , Time

“The mathematical thermology created by Fourier may tempt us to hope that, as he has estimated the temperature of the space in which we move, me may in time ascertain the mean temperature of the heavenly bodies: but I regard this order of facts as for ever excluded from our recognition. We can never learn their internal constitution, nor, in regard to some of them, how heat is absorbed by their atmosphere. We may therefore define Astronomy as the science by which we discover the laws of the geometrical and mechanical phenomena presented by the heavenly bodies.”

Auguste Comte (1798–1857) French philosopher

Book II: Astronomy, Ch. I: General View
The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (1853)

Law , Hope , Mathematics , Learning

“The white men of the South were aroused by the mere instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes and conducted in the interest of adventurers.”

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

Variant: The white men of the South were aroused by the mere instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes and conducted in the interest of adventurers.
Source: 1900s, A History of the American People, Vol. 9 (1902), p. 58

Men

“No envy is more mean than that of small-minded beings when they see a neighbor lifted, as though borne aloft by angels, out of the dull drudgery of their common existence; petty spirits are more ready to forgive a prince the most fabulous wealth than a fellow-sufferer beneath the same yoke the smallest degree of freedom.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

Angels , Forgiveness , Freedom , Suffering

“To be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars- to be satisfied with your possessions but not content with yourself until you have made the best of them- to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice- to be governed by you admirations rather than by your disgusts- to covet nothing that is your neighbors except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners- to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ; to spend as much time as you can in God's out-of doors- these are the little guideposts on the footpaths to peace.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

Footpaths to Peace.

Love , Life , God , World

“Perspective is nothing more than a rational demonstration applied to the consideration of how objects in front of the eye transmit their image to it, by means of a pyramid of lines. The Pyramid is the name I apply to the lines which, starting from the surface and edges of each object, converge from a distance and meet in a single point.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), II Linear Perspective

“And rising inequality and declining mobility are also bad for our families and social cohesion -- not just because we tend to trust our institutions less, but studies show we actually tend to trust each other less when there’s greater inequality. And greater inequality is associated with less mobility between generations. That means it’s not just temporary; the effects last. It creates a vicious cycle. For example, by the time she turns three years old, a child born into a low-income home hears 30 million fewer words than a child from a well-off family, which means by the time she starts school she’s already behind, and that deficit can compound itself over time.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)

School , Family , Home , Study

“The woman is increasingly aware that love alone can give her full stature, just as the man begins to discern that spirit alone can endow his life with its highest meaning. Fundamentally, therefore, both seek a psychic relation to the other, because love needs the spirit, and the spirit love, for their fulfillment.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Source: Contributions to Analytical Psychology (1928), p. 185

Love , Life

“Technology is an inherent democratizer. Because of the evolution of hardware and software, you’re able to scale up almost anything. It means that in our lifetime everyone may have tools of equal power.”

Sergey Brin (1973) President of Alphabet Inc.

Guest lecture, UC Berkeley http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7582902000166025817 Oct. 5, 2005 – 40 min.

“The concrete man has but one interest — to be right. That to him is the art of all arts, and all means are fair which help him to it.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

1880s, The Sentiment of Rationality (1882)

Art , Help

“[…] despite how hard sometimes the world seems to be, and all you see on television is war and conflict and poverty and violence, the truth is that if you had to choose when to be born, not knowing where or who you would be, in all of human history, now would be the time. Because the world is less violent, it is healthier, it is wealthier, it is more tolerant and it offers more opportunity than any time in human history for more people than any time in human history. Now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still terrible things happening around the world or in this region. We still have things like human trafficking. And we still have terrible abuse of children. And there are conflicts. And so these are things that we’re going to have to tackle and deal with. But you should know that with each successive generation things have improved just a little bit. And over time, that little bit adds to a lot. And it’s now up to you, the next generation, to make sure that 20 years from now, or 30 years from now, people look back and say, wow, things are a lot better now than they were back then. And there will still be problems 20 or 30 years from now also. But they will be different problems, because you will have solved many of the problems that exist today.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall (April 2014)

War , Children , People , Truth

“It is a stupid observation, but the Labour Party are not an smart lot, are they? I mean, if all those people were born in the same town, you would blame bad parenting, wouldn't you all?”

Jeremy Hardy (1961–2019) British comedian

The News Quiz, BBC Radio 4, July 1997 (rebroadcast on BBC 7, 23 July 1999)
Variant: It seems a shallow observation, but… the Tory Conference are not an attractive lot, are they? I mean, if all those people were born in the same village, you'd blame pollution, wouldn't you?

People , Stupidity , Parent

“Peace can only come as people begin to meet each other. Those that do have the courage to cross the road, however, to look kindly at people and to listen to them with tenderness, will find people much like themselves, people seeking to be loved for who they are. And that it is OK for each one of us to admit, "I don't have all the truth…. I am vulnerable, I am broken. I need help." Then comes the realization, "I need your help. I need your friendship." In the end, what you will find, and what you will help the world to discover, Vanier said, is what it means to be human.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Google this: Jean Vanier and what it means to be human http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-briggs/google-this-jean-vanier-a_b_7484702.html Huffington Post, 02/06/2015
From interviews and talks

Love , Friendship , People , Truth

“Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriation.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Section 2, paragraph 30.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

Communication

“An additional reason for caution in dealing with corporations is to be found in the international commercial conditions of to-day. The same business conditions which have produced the great aggregations of corporate and individual wealth have made them very potent factors in international Commercial competition. Business concerns which have the largest means at their disposal and are managed by the ablest men are naturally those which take the lead in the strife for commercial supremacy among the nations of the world. America has only just begun to assume that commanding position in the international business world which we believe will more and more be hers. It is of the utmost importance that this position be not jeoparded, especially at a time when the overflowing abundance of our own natural resources and the skill, business energy, and mechanical aptitude of our people make foreign markets essential. Under such conditions it would be most unwise to cramp or to fetter the youthful strength of our Nation. Moreover, it cannot too often be pointed out that to strike with ignorant violence at the interests of one set of men almost inevitably endangers the interests of all. The fundamental rule in our national life —the rule which underlies all others—is that, on the whole, and in the long run, we shall go up or down together.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, First Annual Message to Congress (1901)

Life , Men , People , Youth

“If there is a single assumption which pervades conventional organizational theory, it is that authority is the central, indispensable means of managerial control.”

Douglas McGregor (1906–1964) American professor

Source: The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), p. 18 (2006; 24)

“He John Ruskin knows a great deal more about my pictures than I do; he puts things into my head, and points out meanings in them that I never intended.”

J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) British Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker

Quote of Turner, c. 1840's; as cited by George Walter Thornbury, in The life of J.M.W. Turner, Volume II; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, p. 130
Turner did not appear to be pleased with Mr. Ruskin's superlative eulogies, according to Peter Cunningham
1821 - 1851

“Everyone here would die for the sake of truth. Everyone here lies constantly for the tiniest chance of personal gain. This is what it means to be a scientist.”

Greg Egan (1961) Australian science fiction writer and former computer programmer

The Demon's Passage http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Demons%20Passage
Fiction

Truth , Chance , Personality

“Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world. Our hearing extends to a small distance. Our sight is impeded by intervening bodies and shadows. To know each other we must reach beyond the sphere of our sense perceptions. We must transmit our intelligence, travel, transport the materials and transfer the energies necessary for our existence. Following this thought we now realize, forcibly enough to dispense with argument, that of all other conquests of man, without exception, that which is most desirable, which would be most helpful in the establishment of universal peaceful relations is — the complete ANNIHILATION OF DISTANCE.
To achieve this wonder, electricity is the one and only means. Inestimable good has already been done by the use of this all powerful agent, the nature of which is still a mystery. Our astonishment at what has been accomplished would be uncontrollable were it not held in check by the expectation of greater miracles to come. That one, the greatest of all, can be viewed in three aspects: Dissemination of intelligence, transportation, and transmission of power.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

A Means for Furthering Peace (1905)

World , Peace , Travel , Intelligence

“The General is sorry to be informed —, that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice heretofore little known in an American army, is growing into a fashion; — he hopes the officers will, by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it, and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our arms, if we insult it by impiety and folly; added to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests and despises it.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Extract from the Orderly Book of the army under command of Washington, dated at Head Quarters, in the city of New York (3 August 1770); reported in American Masonic Register and Literary Companion, Volume 1 https://www.thefederalistpapers.org/founders/washington/george-washington-the-foolish-and-wicked-practice-of-profane-cursing-and-swearing (1829), p. 163
1770s

Men , Hope , Fashion , Sense

“Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.”

Friedrich Schiller book On the Aesthetic Education of Man

Letter 15
On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)

“Policemen and prisons ought never to be the means used to bring men back to the practice of religion.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Men , Religion

“One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

I.74
Human, All Too Human (1878)

Fear

“Serving means developing love. So unless you develop your love for God you cannot serve Him. Anywhere. Whenever you give some service, it is based on love. Just like mother giving service to the helpless child. Why? Love. So similarly, our life will be perfect when our love is perfect with the perfect Supreme Personality of Godhead. Then it is all right.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Lecture - Seattle, https://vanisource.org/wiki/680927_-_Lecture_-_Seattle (30 September 1968)
Quotes from other Sources, Quotes from other Sources: Loving God

Love , Life , God , Personality

“I do not like the idea of happiness — it is too momentary — I would say that I was always busy and interested in something — interest has more meaning to me than the idea of happiness.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

In notes to Anita Pollitzer, Abiquiu, New Mexico, (after February, 1968); as quoted in The Complete Correspondence of Georgia O’Keeffe & Anita Pollitzer, ed. Clive Giboire, Touchstone Books, Simon & Schuster Inc., New York, 1990, p. 324
1960s

Idea , Business , Happiness

“The very fact that religions are not content to stand on their own feet, but insist on crippling or warping the flexible minds of children in their favour, forms a sufficient proof that there is no truth in them. If there were any truth in religion, it would be even more acceptable to a mature mind than to an infant mind—yet no mature mind ever accepts religion unless it has been crippled in infancy. … The whole basis of religion is a symbolic emotionalism which modern knowledge has rendered meaningless & even unhealthy. Today we know that the cosmos is simply a flux of purposeless rearrangement amidst which man is a wholly negligible incident or accident. There is no reason why it should be otherwise, or why we should wish it otherwise. All the florid romancing about man's "dignity", "immortality", &c. &c. is simply egotistical delusions plus primitive ignorance. So, too, are the infantile concepts of "sin" or cosmic "right" & "wrong". Actually, organic life on our planet is simply a momentary spark of no importance or meaning whatsoever. Man matters to nobody except himself. Nor are his "noble" imaginative concepts any proof of the objective reality of the things they visualise. Psychologists understand how these concepts are built up out of fragments of experience, instinct, & misapprehension. Man is essentially a machine of a very complex sort, as La Mettrie recognised nearly 2 centuries ago. He arises through certain typical chemical & physical reactions, & his members gradually break down into their constituent parts & vanish from existence. The idea of personal "immortality" is merely the dream of a child or savage. However, there is nothing anti-ethical or anti-social in such a realistic view of things. Although meaning nothing in the cosmos as a whole, mankind obviously means a good deal to itself. Therefore it must be regulated by customs which shall ensure, for its own benefit, the full development of its various accidental potentialities. It has a fortuitous jumble of reactions, some of which it instinctively seeks to heighten & prolong, & some of which it instinctively seeks to shorten or lessen. Also, we see that certain courses of action tend to increase its radius of comprehension & degree of specialised organisation (things usually promoting the wished-for reactions, & in general removing the species from a clod-like, unorganised state), while other courses of action tend to exert an opposite effect. Now since man means nothing to the cosmos, it is plan that his only logical goal (a goal whose sole reference is to himself) is simply the achievement of a reasonable equilibrium which shall enhance his likelihood of experiencing the sort of reactions he wishes, & which shall help along his natural impulse to increase his differentiation from unorganised force & matter. This goal can be reached only through teaching individual men how best to keep out of each other's way, & how best to reconcile the various conflicting instincts which a haphazard cosmic drift has placed within the breast of the same person. Here, then, is a practical & imperative system of ethics, resting on the firmest possible foundation & being essentially that taught by Epicurus & Lucretius. It has no need of supernatualism, & indeed has nothing to do with it.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Natalie H. Wooley (2 May 1936), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 240-241
Non-Fiction, Letters

Life , Men , Children , Truth

“Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means that life itself has become one.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Letter to Cecil Spring-Rice (12 March 1900)
1900s

Life , Death

“When one door closes, another opens… into another room, another space, other happenings. There are many doors to open and close in our lives. Some doors we leave ajar, where we hope and plan to return. Some doors are slammed shut decisively—"No more of that!" Some are closed regretfully, softly—"It was good, but it is over." Departures entail arrivals somewhere else. Closing a door, leaving it behind, means opening onto new vistas and ventures, new possibilities, new incentives.”

Helen Nearing (1904–1995) American writer

Source: Loving and Leaving the Good Life (1992), p. 1

Hope , Departure , Decision

“It is unnecessary for me to state that I shall support all those measures, the object of which is to elevate the moral and social condition of the Working Classes, by lessening their hours of toil—by improving their means of health—and by cultivating their intelligence. These are objects which, it is not unpleasing for me to remember, I endeavoured, in common with some of my friends, to advance, before they engaged the attention of Governments, or were supported by triumphant Parliamentary majorities.”

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

Address to the electors of Buckinghamshire (25 May 1847), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 838.
1840s

Health , Intelligence , Support

“Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in a mixed company.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

Letter to his godson, No.112 (undated)

Religion

“Beneficence is a duty. He who often practices this, and sees his beneficent purpose succeed, comes at last really to love him whom he has benefited. When, therefore, it is said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," this does not mean, "Thou shalt first of all love, and by means of love (in the next place) do him good"; but: "Do good to thy neighbour, and this beneficence will produce in thee the love of men (as a settled habit of inclination to beneficence)."”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Metaphysical Elements of Ethics (1780). Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, translation available at Philosophy.eserver.org http://philosophy.eserver.org/kant/metaphys-elements-of-ethics.txt. From section "Preliminary Notions of the Susceptibility of the Mind for Notions of Duty Generally", Part C ("Of love to men")

Love , Men

“I tell myself that anyone who says he has finished a canvas is terribly arrogant. Finished means complete, perfect, and I toil away without making any progress, searching, fumbling around, without achieving anything much.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Claude Monet, 1893; as quoted in: David W. Galenson (2009), Painting outside the Lines, p. 49
1890 - 1900

Search , Perfection

“Just because our political heroes were murdered does not mean that the dream does not still live, buried deep in our broken hearts.”

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

Page 141
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

Dreams , Heart

“Genius still means to me, in my Russian fastidiousness and pride of phrase, a unique dazzling gift. The gift of James Joyce, and not the talent of Henry James.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

As quoted in What Is the Sangha?: The Nature of Spritual Community (2001) by Sangharakshita, p. 136.

“What is meant by "the representation of space"? What distinguishes one representation from another? Does this mean "how does one see that one thing is not another thing?" What constitutes a change of focus?… What about "another way of establishing (?) "thingness"? "Something" can be either one thing or another (without turning the rabbit on its side)..”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Book B (sketchbook), c 1967: as quoted in Jasper Johns, Writings, sketchbook Notes, Interviews, ed. Kirk Varnedoe, Moma New York, 1996, p. 62
1960s

Way , Change

“Meaning and morality of one's life come from within oneself. Healthy, strong individuals seek self-expansion by experimenting and by living dangerously. Life consists of an infinite number of possibilities, and the healthy person explores as many of them as possible. Religions that teach pity, self-contempt, humility, self-restraint and guilt are incorrect. The good life is ever-changing, challenging, devoid of regret, intense, creative, and risky.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Attributed to Nietzsche on quotes sites and on social media, the original quotation is from An Introduction to the History of Psychology by B. R. Hergenhahn (2008, page 226) and is the author's summary of Nietzsche's ideas: "The meaning and morality of one's life come from within oneself. Healthy, strong individuals seek self-expansion by experimenting, by living dangerously. Life consists of an almost infinite number of possibilities, and the healthy person (the superman) explores as many of them as possible. Religions or philosophies that teach pity, humility, submissiveness, self-contempt, self-restraint, guilt, or a sense of community are simply incorrect. [...] For Nietzsche, the good life is ever-changing, challenging, devoid of regret, intense, creative, and risky."
Misattributed

Life , Religion , Strong , Change

“I wish to come down eighteen hundred years later and refer to a remark made by one of the Latin historians. Some Christians were persecuted in Rome through error, they being 'mistaken for Jews.' The meaning seems plain. These pagans had nothing against Christians, but they were quite ready to persecute Jews. For some reason or other they hated a Jew before they even knew what a Christian was. May I not assume, then, that the persecution of Jews is a thing which antedates Christianity and was not born of Christianity?”

Mark Twain book Concerning the Jews

Concerning the Jews (Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1899)

Hate , Error

“Hopefully, more and more people will begin to feel their story is somehow part of this larger story of how we're going to reshape America in a way that is less mean-spirited and more generous.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

on sexism and racism, in * 1990-05-03
Harvard Student Tackles Racism At Core
Illinois Daily Herald
Allison J.
Pugh
Section 3, Page 2
quoted in * 2012-03-14
Obama 1990 Interview: ‘We’re Going To Reshape Mean Spirited Selfish America, I Hope To Be Part Of Transformation’
velvethammer
Ironic Surrealism
http://ironicsurrealism.com/2012/03/14/obama-1990-interview-were-going-to-reshape-mean-spirited-america
2012-03-20; and * 2012-03-18
Rachel Maddow Asks Why Both Presidents George Bush ‘Hate America’ Like Barack Obama
Tommy
Christopher
Mediaite
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/rachel-maddow-asks-why-both-presidents-george-bush-hate-america-like-barack-obama/
2012-03-20
1990s

People , Way , Feeling , Parting

“I keep having the same experience and keep resisting it every time. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lack an intellectual conscience. Indeed, it has often seemed to me as if anyone calling for an intellectual conscience were as lonely in the most densely populated cities as if he were in a desert. Everybody looks at you with strange eyes and goes right on handling his scales, calling this good and that evil. Nobody even blushes when you intimate that their weights are underweight; nor do people feel outraged; they merely laugh at your doubts. I mean: the great majority of people does not consider it contemptible to believe this or that and to live accordingly, without first having given themselves an account of the final and most certain reasons pro and con, and without even troubling themselves about such reasons afterward: the most gifted men and the noblest women still belong to this "great majority." But what is goodheartedness, refinement, or genius to me, when the person who has these virtues tolerates slack feelings in his faith and judgments and when he does not account the desire for certainty as his inmost craving and deepest distress--as that which separates the higher human beings from the lower.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 2
The Gay Science (1882)

Women , Men , People , Faith

“The word 'service' comes from serving, and serving means being dependent.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

Dependency

“Is it not proven beyond all dispute that there is no limit to the enormities which men will commit when they are once persuaded that they are keepers of other men's consciences? To spread religion by any means, and to crush heresy by all means is the practical inference from the doctrine that one man may control another's religion. Given the duty of a state to foster some one form of faith, and by the sure inductions of our nature slowly but certainly persecution will occur. To prevent for ever the possibility of Papists roasting Protestants, Anglicans hanging Romish priests, and Puritans flogging Quakers, let every form of state-churchism be utterly abolished, and the remembrance of the long curse which it has cast upon the world be blotted out for ever.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

The Inquisition, 1868 The Sword and the Trowel http://www.spurgeon.org/s_and_t/inq.htm

Men , World , Faith , Religion

“I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it! If it is not true let us tear it out! Let us stick to it then, let us stand firmly by it then.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Speech at Chicago (1858)

Men , Truth , Books , Tear

“So we find that the three possible solutions of the great problem of increasing human energy are answered by the three words: food, peace, work. Many a year I have thought and pondered, lost myself in speculations and theories, considering man as a mass moved by a force, viewing his inexplicable movement in the light of a mechanical one, and applying the simple principles of mechanics to the analysis of the same until I arrived at these solutions, only to realize that they were taught to me in my early childhood. These three words sound the key-notes of the Christian religion. Their scientific meaning and purpose now clear to me: food to increase the mass, peace to diminish the retarding force, and work to increase the force accelerating human movement. These are the only three solutions which are possible of that great problem, and all of them have one object, one end, namely, to increase human energy. When we recognize this, we cannot help wondering how profoundly wise and scientific and how immensely practical the Christian religion is, and in what a marked contrast it stands in this respect to other religions. It is unmistakably the result of practical experiment and scientific observation which have extended through the ages, while other religions seem to be the outcome of merely abstract reasoning. Work, untiring effort, useful and accumulative, with periods of rest and recuperation aiming at higher efficiency, is its chief and ever-recurring command. Thus we are inspired both by Christianity and Science to do our utmost toward increasing the performance of mankind. This most important of human problems I shall now specifically consider.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Age , Peace , Religion , Food

“The first deterrence, nuclear deterrence, is presently being superseded by the second deterrence: a type of deterrence based on what I call 'the information bomb' associated with the new weaponry of information and communications technologies. Thus, in the very near future, and I stress this important point, it will no longer be war that is the continuation of politics by other means, it will be what I have dubbed 'the integral accident' that is the continuation of politics by other means.”

Paul Virilio (1932–2018) French philosopher

From Ctheory Interview With Paul Virilio 'The Kosovo War Took Place In Orbital Space: Paul Virilio in Conversation with John Armitage' http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=132

War , Communication , Future

“In modern society, the meaning of words changes much more quickly than it did in antiquity or even in the recent past. This arises from the intermingling of social classes, the struggle of interests and opinions, the struggle of political parties and the variety of aspirations and tastes.”

Michel Bréal (1832–1915) French philologist

Source: Essai de semantique, 1897, p. 104-5 ; as cited in: Schaff (1962:14).

Change , Past

“First of all I want to remind you of the essential features of models. In my opinion they are: (i) drawing up a list of the variables to be considered; (ii) drawing up a list of the equations or relations the variables have to obey and (iii) testing the validity of the equations, which implies the estimation of their coefficients, if any. As a consequence of especially (iii) we may have to revise (i) and (ii) so as to arrive at a satisfactory degree of realism of the theory embodied in the model. Then, the model may be used for various purposes, that is, for the solution of various problems. The advantages of models are, on one hand, that they force us to present a "complete" theory by which I mean a theory taking into account all relevant phenomena and relations and, on the other hand, the confrontation with observation, that is, reality. Of course these remarks are far from new.”

Jan Tinbergen (1903–1994) Dutch economist

"The Use of Models: Experience," 1969

Problem , Reality , Drawing

“I refuse to accept the notion that we couldn’t have prevented some of those murders, and suicides, and kept more families whole. I know we won’t all agree on this issue. But it’s time to be honest — fewer gun safety laws don’t mean more freedom, they mean more fallen officers. They mean more grieving families, and more Americans terrified that they or their loved ones could be next.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Obama Police Chiefs (10-27-2015) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-police-chiefs_us_562fa716e4b06317990f8af3?654mfgvi=
2015

Love , Family , Law , Suicide

“No, you don't wanna get me started. Jell-O with hair all in the mold. I'd be like, "Damn, man, how are you gonna mess up Jell-O?" Jell-O is so wholesome and family-like. It just ruins it for me. To have a hair in there, yeah. I mean, I'm like, "Come on, Bill Cosby pumps this, man!"”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)

Family

“What is the lesson to us to-day? Are we to go the way of the older civilizations? The immense increase in the area of civilized activity to-day, so that it is nearly coterminous with the world's surface; the immense increase in the multitudinous variety of its activities; the immense increase in the velocity of the world movement—are all these to mean merely that the crash will be all the more complete and terrible when it comes? We can not be certain that the answer will be in the negative; but of this we can be certain, that we shall not go down in ruin unless we deserve and earn our end. There is no necessity for us to fall; we can hew out our destiny for ourselves, if only we have the wit and the courage and the honesty.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The World Movement (1910)

World , Way , Courage

“Thinking more of others’ happiness than of her own was very fine; but did it not mean giving up her very individuality, quenching all the warm love, the true desires, that made her herself? Yet in this deadness lay her only comfort; so it seemed.”

Elizabeth Gaskell book Wives and Daughters

Wives and Daughters, ch. 11
Wives and Daughters

Love , Thinking , Dead , Happiness

“This song of the waters is audible to every ear, but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all. To hear even a few notes of it you must first live here for a long time, and you must know the speech of hills and rivers. Then on a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over rimrocks, sit quietly and listen for a wolf to howl, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand. Then you may hear it—a vast pulsing harmony—its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "Chihuahua and Sonora: The Green Lagoons", p. 149.

Death , Music , Understanding , Thinking

“We see from Lenard's table that a cathode ray can travel through air at atmospheric pressure a distance of about half a centimetre before the brightness of the phosphorescence falls to about half its original value. Now the mean free path of the molecules of air at this pressure is about 10-5 cm., and if a molecule of air were projected it would lose half its momentum in a space comparable with the mean free path. Even if we suppose that it is not the same molecule that is carried, the effect of the obliquity of the collisions would reduce the momentum to half in a short multiple of that path. Thus, from Lenard's experiments on the absorption of the rays outside the tube, it follows on the hypothesis that the cathode rays are charged particles moving with high velocities, that the size of the carriers must be small compared with the dimensions of ordinary atoms or molecules. The assumption of a state of matter more finely subdivided than the atom of an element is a somewhat startling one; but a hypothesis that would involve somewhat similar consequences—viz. that the so-called elements are compounds of some primordial element—has been put forward from time to time by various chemists.”

J. J. Thomson (1856–1940) British physicist

Royal Institution Lecture (April 30, 1897) as quoted by Edmund Taylor Whittaker, A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity from the Age of Descartes to the Close of the Nineteenth Century http://books.google.com/books?id=CGJDAAAAIAAJ (1910).
Quotes eat me

Travel , Time

“When it comes to the insightful reading of such passages that comes via the elevated sense, we shall not beg to differ at all about its name—whether one wishes to call it tropologia, allegoria, or anything else—but only about whether it contains meanings that are beneficial.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

Commentary on the Song of Songs, As translated by Margaret M. Mitchell in Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics (2010)

Sense , Reading

“The perpetual tendency of the race of man to increase beyond the means of subsistence is one of the general laws of animated nature, which we can have no reason to expect to change.”

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) British political economist

Essay on the Principle of Population (1798; rev. through 1826)

Law , Nature , Change , Animals

“I don't believe in Jewish art. There are Jewish artists, which means, artists who are born Jewish, but that does not mean that their work is Jewish art. (translation from Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

version in Dutch (citaat van Israëls, in het Nederlands): Ik geloof niet in joodse kunst. Er zijn joodse kunstenaars, d.w.z. kunstenaars die joods geboren zijn, maar dat wil nog niet zeggen dat hun werk joodse kunst is.
Quote of Jozef Israëls, 9 July 1907, translated from his letter (written in German) to the committee of the Exhibition for Jewish Art in Berlin; as cited in Jozef Israëls, 1824 – 1911, ed. Dieuwertje Dekkers; Waanders, Zwolle 1999, p. 55
Jozef Israëls was Jewish himself, but refused to call his art Jewish as the Zionist movement liked to call it
Quotes of Jozef Israels, after 1900

Art

“I know what I'm about to say now is controversial, but I have to say it. This nation cannot continue turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the taking of some 4,000 unborn children's lives every day. That's one every 21 seconds. One every 21 seconds. We cannot pretend that America is preserving her first and highest ideal, the belief that each life is sacred, when we've permitted the deaths of 15 million helpless innocents since the Roe versus Wade decision. 15 million children who will never laugh, never sing, never know the joy of human love, will never strive to heal the sick, feed the poor, or make peace among nations. Abortion has denied them the first and most basic of human rights. We are all infinitely poorer for their loss. There's another grim truth we should face up to: Medical science doctors confirm that when the lives of the unborn are snuffed out, they often feel pain, pain that is long and agonizing. This nation fought a terrible war so that black Americans would be guaranteed their God-given rights. Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some could decide whether others should be free or slaves. Well, today another question begs to be asked: How can we survive as a free nation when some decide that others are not fit to live and should be done away with? I believe no challenge is more important to the character of America than restoring the right to life to all human beings. Without that right, no other rights have meaning. "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of God."”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

I will continue to support every effort to restore that protection including the Hyde-Jepsen respect life bill. I've asked for your all-out commitment, for the mighty power of your prayers, so that together we can convince our fellow countrymen that America should, can, and will preserve God's greatest gift.
Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters (30 January 1984) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40394 · YouTube - Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Elph9CfsKs
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Love , Life , Death , God

“Prabhupada: Yes. That is Tulasi dasa’s remark. So in many passages of his poetry he has not done very justice to woman. And another poetry, he writes, dhol gunar sudra nari. Dhol gunar sudra nari ihe sab sasan ke adhikari. (?) Dhol gunar pasu sudra nari, ihe sab sasan ke adhikari. Dhol, dhol means drum, mrdanga. Gunar, gunar means… What is called English? A fool, fool. Illiterate fool, what is one word?
Brahmananda: Buffoon?
Prabhupada: Maybe buffoon. Buffoon is sometimes troublesome. But gunar means he doesn’t understand very nicely.
Brahmananda: Dullard.
Prabhupada: Dull, dull. Dhol gunar, dhol means drum and gunar means dull. Sudra, and the laborer class. Three. Dhol, gunar, sudra, and pasu, household animals, just like cows, dogs.
Brahmananda: Pet.
Prabhupada: Pet, like that. Dhol gunar sudra pasu and nari. Nari means woman. (laughs) Just see. He has classified the nari amongst these class, dhol, gunar, sudra, pasu, nari. Ihe sab sasan ke adhikari. Sasan ke adhikari means all these are subjected for punishment. And what about the guest?
Govinda dasi: Oh, the guest? It’s coming.
Prabhupada: So sasan ke adhikari means they should be punished. (laughs) Punished means, just like dhol, when the, I mean to say, sound is not very hard, dag-dag, if you beat it on the border, then it comes to be nice tune. Similarly, pasu, animals, if you request, “My dear dog, please do not go there.” Hut! (laughter) “No, my dear dog.” Hut! This is the way.(?) Similarly, woman. If you become lenient, then she will be troublesome. So in India still, in villages, whenever there is some quarrel between husband wife, the husband beats and she is tamed. (laughs) In civilized society, “Oh, you have done this?” Immediately some criminal case. But in uncivilized society they don’t care for court or civilized way of…”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Conversation, New York, April 12, 1969 PrabhupadaBooks.com http://prabhupadabooks.com/conversations/1969/apr/new_york/april/12/1969?d=1
Quotes from other Sources, Quotes from other Sources: Violence and Dictatorship

Justice , Dogs , Fools , Way

“…to the priestly class — decadence is no more than a means to an end. Men of this sort have a vital interest in making mankind sick, and in confusing the values of "good" and "bad," "true" and "false" in a manner that is not only dangerous to life, but also slanders it.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Antichrist

Sec. 24
The Antichrist (1888)

Life , Men , Falseness

“[Messrs Ogden and Richards] will reply that they are considering the meaning of a "thought," not of a word. A "thought" is not a social phenomenon, like speech, and therefore does not have the two sides, active and passive, which can be distinguished in speech. I should urge, however, that all the reasons which led our authors to avoid introducing images in explaining meaning should have also led them to avoid introducing "thoughts." If a theory of meaning is to be fitted into natural science as they desire, it is necessary to define the meaning of words without introducing anything "mental" in the sense in which what is "mental" is not subject to the laws of physics. Therefore, for the same reasons for which I now hold that the meaning of words should be explained without introducing images – which I argued to be possible in the above-quoted passage – I also hold that meaning in general should be treated without introducing "thoughts," and should be regarded as a property of words considered as physical phenomena. Let us therefore amend their theory. They say: "'I am thinking of A' is the same thing as 'My thought is being caused by A.'" Let us substitute: "'I am speaking of A' is the same thing as 'My speech is being caused by A.'" Can this theory be true?”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1920s, Review of The Meaning of Meaning (1926)

Law , Quotes , Nature , Thinking

“The only hidden meaning of things
Is that they have no hidden meaning.
It's the strangest thing of all,
Stranger than all poets' dreams
And all philosophers' thoughts,
That things are really what they seem to be
And there's nothing to understand.
Yes, this is what my senses learned on their own:
Things have no meaning: they have existence.
Things are the only hidden meaning of things.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

O único sentido oculto das coisas
É elas não terem sentido oculto nenhum,
É mais estranho do que todas as estranhezas
E do que os sonhos de todos os poetas
E os pensamentos de todos os filósofos,
Que as coisas sejam realmente o que parecem ser
E não haja nada que compreender.
Sim, eis o que os meus sentidos aprenderam sozinhos:—
As coisas não têm significação: têm existência.
As coisas são o único sentido oculto das coisas.
Alberto Caeiro (heteronym), O Guardador de Rebanhos ("The Keeper of Sheep"), XXXIX, trans. Richard Zenith.

Dreams , Understanding , Sense , Learning

“America is the world’s oldest constitutional democracy; that means we’re going to stand up for democracy -- it’s a part of who we are. And we do this not only because we think it’s right, but because it’s been proven to be the most stable and successful form of government. In recent decades, many Asian nations have shown that different nations can realize the promise of self-government in their own way; they have their own path. But we must recognize that democracies don’t stop just with elections; they also depend on strong institutions and a vibrant civil society, and open political space, and tolerance of people who are different than you. We have to create an environment where the rights of every citizen, regardless of race or gender, or religion or sexual orientation are not only protected, but respected.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall (April 2014)

People , World , Religion , Way

“What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? I mean of course something sensible, that is outside the sexual program, free of resentment, illusion, and theory. Where is the man to be found capable of such superiority? Woman always stands just where the man's shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to repair this misunderstanding, he overvalues her and believes her the most desirable thing in the world.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Source: "Woman in Europe" (1927), P. 236

World

“Whenever I watch TV and see those poor, starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean, I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.”

Mariah Carey (1970) American singer-songwriter

This was actually taken from a phony satirical interview on a site called "Cupcake" that has been widely circulated as an actual quotation since its appearance in early 1996. See the Snopes http://www.snopes.com/quotes/carey.htm Urban Legends site for more information.
Misattributed

Love , Death , World , Help

“I'm known as a survivor now, I hope so, for the jail thing, bullets and everything, controversies and everything, I hope so. And I want to be in the future known as somebody. You know I want people to be talking about me like you know: "remember when he was real bad, remember when Tupac was real bad". You know what I mean, they do that about a lot of actors now, like John Travolta I read stories like "remember you were wild". And all these other people, and now they're like sweet hearts. We all should get that chance, I just want my chance.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, MTV interview with Tabitha Soren (1995)

People , Hope , Chance , Reading

“Neo-Plasticism has its roots in Cubism. It could just as easy be called the Painting of Real Abstraction. Since the abstract can be expressed by a plastic reality... It achieves what all painting has tried to achieve but has been able to express only in a veiled manner. By their position and their dimension as well as by the importance of given to colour, the coloured planes express in a plastic way only relations and not forms. Neo-Plasticism imparts to these relations an aesthetic balance and thereby expresses universal harmony... For the moment what art had discovered must still be limited to art itself. Our environment cannot yet be realized as a creation of pure harmony. Art today is at the very point formerly occupied by religion. In its deepest meaning art was the transposition of the natural [into another plane]; in practice it always sought to achieve harmony between man and untransposed nature. Generally speaking, so do Theosophy and Anthroposophy, although these already possessed the original symbol of balance. And this is why they never were able to achieve equivalent relations, that is to say true harmony.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

Quote in Mondrian's letter to Rudolf Steiner, c. 1921-23; as cited in Abstract Painting, Michel Seuphor, Dell Publishing Co 1964, p. 83-85
1920's

Religion , Art , Way , Nature

“On rumors: I've heard some pretty bad rumors…that I'm gay. If I want to go to a party with a few male friends, it doesn't mean that I'm gay. I don't see why I can't have friends of both sexes without rumors being spread about me. It's crazy.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.flixster.com/actor/leonardo-di-caprio/leonardo-dicaprio-quotes

Sex

“Far from secularization inexorably leading to the death of religion, it has instead given birth to the search for new forms of religious life. The imminent victory of the Kingdom of Reason has never materialized. As a whole, mankind can never get rid of the need for religious self-identification: who am I, where did I come from, where do I fit in, why am I responsible, what does my life mean, how will I face death? Religion is a paramount aspect of human culture. Religious need cannot be excommunicated from culture by rationalist incantation. Man does not live by reason alone.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Interview with Nathan Gardels http://www.digitalnpq.org/archive/2009_fall_2010_winter/04_kolakowski.html (1991)

Life , Death , Religion , Search

“I have no use for a Secularism which treats Hinduism as just another religion, and puts it on par with Islam and Christianity. For me, this concept of Secularism is a gross perversion of the concept which arose in the modem West as a revolt against Christianity and which should mean, in the Indian context, a revolt against Islam as well.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

How I became a Hindu (1982)

Religion

“How came the king by a power which the people are afraid to trust, and always obliged to check? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, which needs checking, be from God; yet the provision, which the constitution makes, supposes such a power to exist. But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se; for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern; and though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavors will be ineffectual; the first moving power will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed is supplied by time.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, Common Sense (1776)

God , People , Way , Time

“I definitely had an eating disorder. What was really frustrating for me was that everyone thought I was anorexic, and I wasn't. I was really depressed and self-loathing. For me, it wasn't about being thin, it was about getting rid of the bait attached to my body. A lot of it came from the self-loathing that came from being raped at the point of developing my voluptuousness. I just thought that if you had a body and if you had anything on you that would be grabbed, it would be grabbed. So I did purposely get rid of it…I mean, my plan is to gain enough weight that I can really be considered voluptuous, and do my 'First Taste' video. And I am preparing myself for what is going to happen. Because soon they will be saying that I'm fat. And it will hurt me.”

Fiona Apple (1977) singer-songwriter, musician

Rolling Stone, "The Caged Bird Sings" January [1998]

Hurt

“Benefiting and hurting others are ways of exercising one's power upon others; that is all one desires in such cases. One hurts those whom one wants to feel one's power, for pain is a much more efficient means to that end than pleasure; pain always raises the question about its origin while pleasure is inclined to stop with itself without looking back. We benefit and show benevolence to those who are already dependent on us in some way (which means that they are used to thinking of us as causes); we want to increase their power because in that way we increase ours, or we want to show them how advantageous it is to be in our power; that way they will become more satisfied with their condition and more hostile to and willing to fight against the enemies of our power.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 13
The Gay Science (1882)

Pain , Hostility , Pleasure , Way

“What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.”

W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British playwright, novelist, short story writer

"1901", p. 67
A Writer's Notebook (1946)

Love , Men , God

“1. Find a subject you care about.
2. Do not ramble, though.
3. Keep it simple.
4. Have the guts to cut.
5. Sound like yourself.
6. Say what you mean to say.
7. Pity the readers.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

As quoted in Science Fictionisms (1995), compiled by William Rotsler
Various interviews

“The overdevelopment of the maternal instinct is identical with that well-known image of the mother which has been glorified in all ages and all tongues. This is the motherlove which is one of the most moving and unforgettable memories of our lives, the mysterious root of all growth and change; the love that means homecoming, shelter, and the long silence from which everything begins and in which everything ends. Intimately known and yet strange like Nature, lovingly tender and yet cruel like fate, 'oyous and untiring giver of life-mater dolorosa and mute implacable portal that closes upon the dead. Mother is motherlove, my experience and my secret. Why risk saying too much, too much that is false and inadequate and beside the point, about that human being who was our mother, the accidental carrier of that great experience which includes herself and myself and all mankind, and indeed the whole of created nature, the experience of life whose children we are? The attempt to say these things has always been made, and probably always will be; but a sensitive person cannot in all fairness load that enormous burden of meaning, responsibility, duty, heaven and hell, on to the shoulders of one frail and fallible human being-so deserving of love, indulgence, understanding, and forgiveness-who was our mother. He knows that the mother carries for us that inborn image of the mater nature and mater spiritualis, of the totality of life of which we are a small and helpless part.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

"Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype" (1939) In CW 9, Part I: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious P.172

Love , Life , Fate , Children

“I began my political responsibility as an ultra-conservative. I wanted the Kaiser to come back; and now I am a revolutionary. I really mean that. If I live to be a hundred I shall maybe be an anarchist, for an anarchist wants to do without all government.”

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor

As quoted in Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984 (1984) by James Bentley, p. 223

“Never for a moment do we lay aside our mistrust of the ideals established by society, and of the convictions which are kept by it in circulation. We always know that society is full of folly and will deceive us in the matter of humanity. … humanity meaning consideration for the existence and the happiness of individual human beings.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics, Chapter 26

Happiness

“And upon a wing of abominations he shall cause desolation, even until the consummation, and that which is determined be poured upon the desolate. The Prophets, in representing kingdoms by Beasts and Birds, put their wings stretched out over any country for their armies sent out to invade and rule over that country. Hence a wing of abominations is an army of false Gods: for an abomination is often put in scripture for a false God; as where Chemosh is called the abomination of Moab, and Molech the abomination of Ammon. The meaning therefore is, that the people of a Prince to come shall destroy the sanctuary, and abolish the daily worship of the true God, and overspread the land with an army of false gods; and by setting up their dominion and worship, cause desolation to the Jews, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. For Christ tells us, that the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel was to be set up in the times of the Roman Empire, Matth.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

xxiv. 15.
Vol. I, Ch. 10: Of the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)

God , People , Bird , Time

“Your questions refer to words; so I have to talk about words.
You say: The point isn't the word, but its meaning, and you think of the meaning as a thing of the same kind as the word, though also different from the word. Here the word, there the meaning.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Philosophical Investigations

§ 120
Philosophical Investigations (1953)

Question , Thinking

“Antisthenes … said once to a youth from Pontus who was on the point of coming to him to be his pupil, and was asking him what things he wanted, "You want a new book, and a new pen, and a new tablet;" - meaning a new mind.”

Antisthenes (-444–-365 BC) Greek philosopher

§ 4
From Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius

Books , Youth

“370. But more correctly: The fact that I use the word "hand" and all the other words in my sentence without a second thought, indeed that I should stand before the abyss if I wanted so much as to try doubting their meanings — shows that absence of doubt belongs to the essence of the language-game, that the question "How do I know…"”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book On Certainty

drags out the language-game, or else does away with it.
On Certainty (1969)

Game , Question

“Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus (1990)

Universe , Reading

“Just some good ol' boys,
Never meaning no harm.
Beats all you never saw
Been in trouble with the law
Since the day they were born.”

Waylon Jennings (1937–2002) American country music singer, songwriter, and musician

Theme from The Dukes of Hazzard (Good Ol' Boys), from Music Man (1979).
Song lyrics

Law , Boy

“When, therefore, as will be clear to those who read, the passage as a connected whole is literally impossible, whereas the outstanding part of it is not impossible but even true, the reader must endeavor to grasp the entire meaning, connecting by an intellectual process the account of what is literally impossible with the parts that are not impossible but historically true, these being interpreted allegorically in common with the part which, so far as the letter goes, did not happen at all. For our contention with regard to the whole of divine scripture is that it all has a spiritual meaning, but not all a bodily meaning; for the bodily meaning is often proved to be an impossibility.”

Origen (185–254) Christian scholar in Alexandria

“How divine scripture should be interpreted,” On First Principles, book 4, chapter 2, Readings in World Christian History (2013), p. 75
On First Principles

Reading , Parting