Quotes about might
page 60

“What I really remember is that people camped out everywhere, and the fact everybody expected it might turn into a big nightmare with all sorts of hassles because back in those days everybody was smoking pot and taking acid.”

Johnny Rivers (1942) American musician

Johnny Rivers Quotes - Johnny Rivers Quotations, Famous Sayings - FamousFix - Page 2. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.famousfix.com/topic/johnny-rivers/quotes?pageno=2.

People

“It might have meant something, or it might not have. That was the thing about uncertainty, you were never sure.”

Robert Sheckley book Hunter/Victim

Source: Hunter/Victim (1988), Chapter 18 (p. 100)

“…Sometimes I’ll do these things for a couple of days then suddenly one day the poem comes out, just like that, in a couple of minutes. I might rewrite it later, a kind of fine tuning, or sometimes I’ll tell the audience it’s a new poem and just perform it to see if it works.”

Benjamin Zephaniah (1958) English poet and author

On his writing process in “Interview with Benjamin Zephaniah” https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/writers/advice/37/a-writers-toolkit/interviews-with-authors/interview-with-benjamin-zephaniah in Writers & Artists

“Some, in their discourse, desire rather commendation of wit, in being able to hold all arguments, than of judgment, in discerning what is true; as if it were a praise, to know what might be said, and not, what should be thought.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Discourse

“Poetry shows up where language shows up – a mysterious supplement, to borrow or deform an old Derrida epithet, that we cannot do without, and that just might be the basis of the material world as we know it. Well, if not language as such, then sound…”

Ariana Reines (1982) American writer

On poetry in “INTERVIEW WITH ARIANA REINES” http://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/interview-ariana-reines/ in The White Review (July 2019)

World

“There is an invaluable treasure trove of useful historical data that has only just begun to be used to inform our actions. The lessons of 1918 (Spanish flu), if well heeded, might help us to avoid repeating the same history today (COVID-19).”

Stephen S. Morse (1951) American virologist and epidemiologist

Source: Stephen S. Morse (2020) cited in " How some cities ‘flattened the curve’ during the 1918 flu pandemic https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/" on National Geographic, 27 March 2020.

History, Help

“No, we didn’t do horror in the sense of haunted houses or people with masks the way you might see them today; something lurking in an anteroom. Our stories were more like peasants sitting around a fire. We had the “Strange World of Your Dreams.””

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

Ours didn’t run to bloody horror. Ours ran to weirdness. We began to interpret dreams. Remember, Joe and I were wholesome characters. We weren’t guys that were bent on the weird and the bizarre. We were the kind of guys who wouldn’t offend our mother, who wouldn’t offend anyone in your family, and certainly not the reader. So we knew that we had to depart from adventure and that there were other ways to go and we came up with the “Strange World of Your Dreams”. Context: page 4 http://www.tcj.com/jack-kirby-interview/4/ 1990, Gary Groth interview

People, World, Dreams, Way

“The pursuit of happiness is a toxic value that has long defined our culture. It is self-defeating and misleading. Living well does not mean avoiding suffering; it means suffering for the right reasons. Because if we’re going to be forced to suffer by simply existing, we might as well learn how to suffer well.”

Mark Manson book Everything Is Fucked

Happiness, Suffering, Learning, Self-confidence

“We don't have much time left. We are moving towards temperature increases of around two degrees Celsius, which is going to have consequences in the tropics, and we will loose things like glaciers. That's not a theory; it's happening right now. It's not a prediction; it's happening right now. But you just sightsee near those glaciers. But the glaciers are a big source of water. And on the questions of water, in California we store our water in a snowpack. When that's gone, the rain will be the same but it won't accumulate. With warming temperatures the snowpack will now work. It might be possible to substitute with dams, but that's complicated. This is conjoined with a big energy problem and I think that we really have to encourage development in this area. Just waiting for technological improvement won't work. We need to encourage it.”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

quoted in Conor Clarke, An Interview with Kenneth Arrow, Part Three https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/07/an-interview-with-kenneth-arrow-part-three/22330/ (2009) New millennium

Question, Problem, Thinking, Water

“IN a free‐enterprise, private‐property system, a corporate executive is an employe of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. That responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom. Of course, in some cases his employers may have a different objective. A group of persons might establish a corporation for an eleemosynary purpose—for example, a hospital or school. The manager of such a corporation will not have money profit as his objective but the rendering of certain services. In either case, the key point is that, in his capacity as a corporate executive, the manager is the agent of the individuals who own the corporation or establish the eleemosynary institution, and his primary responsibility is to them.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” (Sept. 1970)

Money, Making love, School, Law

“Asia gave us dowry deaths and the caste system. Africa elevated famine to an art form. North America cultivated chattel slavery for far longer than I would have dared hope; South America has done things with political oppression that I am obliged to call brilliant; Australia showed the world that the only good aborigine is a dead aborigine; and Antarctica has fabulous weather. Of all the continents that constitute Earth’s terrain, however, Europe remains dearest to my heart and closest to my soul.
I allude here not to the sweatshops, the world wars, or totalitarian socialism (though none of these innovations has escaped my notice) but to the fact that the European imagination endowed me with a degree of glamour—you might even say charm—that in pre-coma times enabled me to function with extraordinary effectiveness. The concept of an Evil One is intrinsic to Islam, of course; the ancient Hebrews had their “adversary,” their satan; the Egyptians feared a dark deity called Set; Zoroastrians believed in Ahriman, essence of destruction (forever warring with Ohrmazd, source of all things bright and beautiful). But only in Christian Europe did the Prince of Hell acquire a personality as vivid and endearing as any you will meet in a Dickens novel.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: Blameless in Abaddon (1996), Chapter 11 (p. 253; spoken by the Devil)

Death, War, World, Fear

“For many citizens of the Western world, this situation proved, as you might imagine, troubling—especially in the United States, where reality has never enjoyed a great deal of prestige.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: Blameless in Abaddon (1996), Chapter 6 (p. 129; spoken by the Devil)

World, Imagination, Reality

“I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Paul of Tarsus book Epistle to the Galatians

2:19-20
Epistle to the Galatians

Love, Life, God, Making love

“Now Im dead, now Im dead, and you're all
Going on to meet your reward. Are you scared? Are you scared? Are you scared? Are you scared?
You might have never heard, but God's comic.”

Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter

God's Comic
Song lyrics, Spike (1989)

God, Dead

“Forgive me, masters of the mind!
At whose behest I long ago
So much unlearnt, so much resign'd —
I come not here to be your foe!
I seek these anchorites, not in ruth,
To curse and to deny your truth; Not as their friend, or child, I speak!
But as, on some far northern strand,
Thinking of his own Gods, a Greek
In pity and mournful awe might stand
Before some fallen Runic stone —
For both were faiths, and both are gone.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (1855)

God, Truth, Faith, Forgiveness

“That I shall sink in death, I know must be;
But with that death of mine what life will die? Across the air, I hear my heart's voice cry:
Where dost thou bear me reckless one? Descend!
Such rashness seldom ends but bitterly'
"Fear not the lofty fall" I answer "rend
With might the clouds, and be content to die,
If God such a glorious death for us intend."”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

As quoted in "Giordano Bruno" by Thomas Davidson, in The Index Vol. VI. No. 36 (4 March 1886), p. 429

Life, Death, God, Fear

“Preservation, renewal, and reform of the Union was my main political and, if you will, moral task in my position as president of the USSR. I consider it my greatest sorrow and misfortune that I did not succeed in preserving the country as a single whole. All my efforts were focused on trying to preserve that unity. Incidentally, more and more statements are heard today, including some by participants in the Belovezh accord, that the "soft form of Union Gorbachev proposed" might have protected our nations and nationalities from painful experiences. But, as the saying goes, the train has already left the station.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1990s, On My Country and the World (1999)

Pain, Effort, Training, Country

“The various positivities produced ... by the logic of political hope depend on the mathematical illusion that negated negations might somehow escape, and not redouble, such negativity.”

Lee Edelman (1953) American academic

Source: No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (2004), p. 5

Hope, Mathematics, Dependency

“I argue, then, that we might do well to attempt what is surely impossible—to withdraw our allegiance, however compulsory, from a reality based on the Ponzi scheme of reproductive futurism.”

Lee Edelman (1953) American academic

Source: No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (2004), p. 4

Reality, Future

“I never took any courses. I think I might have taken a very basic one at some point during film school. I think it was a required class you had to take, and I think they went over the format a little bit. Other than that, I never took any writing courses or screenwriting courses or anything like that. I just tried to read as much as possible.”

Aaron Guzikowski (1974) American screenwriter

School, Thinking, Reading

“We learn about worlds when they do not accommodate us. Not being accommodated can be pedagogy. We generate ideas through the struggles we have to be in the world; we come to question worlds when we are in question. When a question becomes a place you reside in, everything can be thrown into question: explanations you might have handy that allow you to make sense or navigate your way through unfamiliar as well as familiar landscapes no longer work.”

Sara Ahmed (1969) Australian and British academic

Source: "An Affinity of Hammers" (2016), p. 22

World, Making love, Way, Idea

“Appreciate the magnificent brain you possess. Protect and nurture it. Strive to be a good skeptic and critical thinker so that fewer hours of your precious life will be squandered on dead-end beliefs. Always try to think like a scientist so that you might better know truth from fiction.”

Guy P. Harrison (1963) American skeptic author

Life, Truth, Thinking, Dead

“This perception—this comprehension—this right discernment of the great events and general results of universal history, is what might be termed a science of history; and I would have here preferred that term, were it not liable to much misconception, and might have been understood as referring more to special and learned inquiries, than the other name I have adopted...”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) German poet, critic and scholar

The Philosophy of History (1852), Lecture I.

History, Learning, Universe, Science

“[I]f self-deception has to be risked anyhow, it might be better to risk it to take a broad view than a narrow view. It may be foolish, perhaps even dangerous, to wander too far from the highway and then be the dupe of fantasies; but it may be even more foolish, even more dangerous in the end, to be so determined to keep to the well-tested road that you wear blinkers, see nothing of the surrounding landscape, and find the road itself, all that you can see, more and more wearisome and detestable.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Source: Man and Time (1964), Ch. 7, p. 176

Self-confidence

“Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me during life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading... Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making him a happy man; unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history,—with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him.”

John Herschel (1792–1871) English mathematician, astronomer, chemist and photographer

Address on the opening of the Eton Library (1833) as quoted in A History of Inventions, Discoveries and Origins (1846) by John Beckmann, Tr. William Johnston, Vol. 1, frontispiece. https://archive.org/details/historyofinventi01unse/page/n5/mode/2up

Life, Happiness, Books, Age

“Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour ... If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?”

Charlotte Brontë book Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre

Law, Soul, Time

“No citizen should be permitted to become a member of or contribute to any organization whose members are pledged, or have ever been pledged, to tender prior loyalty to any state other than the United States, or to defend any state other than the United States in case of war, except as in such a war the United States might formally be allied with another power.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, “The Truth about Communism” https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051180423&view=1up&seq=5 (1948), p. 16

War, Loyalty

“There is no hope for anybody else. You might as well give up the ghost now.”

Colm O'Rourke (1957) Irish Gaelic football player, journalist and businessman

On Dublin's dominance, RTÉ https://www.hoganstand.com/Article/Index/309065, February 2020

Hope

“I like to think of it as like watching The Godfather...You might have seen it 1,000 times, but when it comes on it makes you stop. Each time you see it, you find something different. That’s what I want people to get from my music.”

Rubén Blades (1948) Panamanian musician, singer, composer, actor, activist, and politician

On comparing the longevity of his music to The Godfather in "Forty Years Into His Career, Rubén Blades is Still Building Bridges & Inspiring Change" https://daily.bandcamp.com/2018/07/03/ruben-blades-music-interview/ in bandcamp daily

People, Making love, Music, Thinking

“Well, the purpose of reform really is directed to the encouraging of growth and employment. I quite agree that to launch into a full scale battle on general reform for academic reasons would be unwise. The central purpose behind the reform must therefore be to encourage those changes in our tax laws which will encourage economic growth for that purpose, and not merely because it might have some longer range interest or significance. The primary job will be to encourage the flow of capital into those areas which stimulate the national growth and not diminish it. But it is going to be a tough fight, because once you spell out, as I said before, reform, it's bound to affect adversely the interests of some, while favoring the interests of others. Therefore reform may be a longer task, and we are anxious that in the effort to get reform, that we do not lose the very important matter of tax reduction for the sake of the economy.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Law, Effort, Change, Fight

“[T]he trade of Africa...is a motive for preventing territory from falling into the hands of other Powers, that those Powers will probably use the dominion which we concede to them for the purpose of crippling the trade that we otherwise should possess; and that seems to be a legitimate motive for the accession of territory which might otherwise be wanting.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: Speech in the House of Lords (25 November 1891), quoted in Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (2001), p. 226

Motivation

“If you intrust independent executive and legislative power to the Government of Ireland, can you say it will never be hostile? On the contrary...you know that a very considerable proportion of the population of Ireland is unfortunately at this time, and has been for generations past, animated with the most bitter sentiments against England. Well, is there any impediment to prevent them in case of some European war, where you might be fighting for your existence, is there anything to prevent the Government of an independent Ireland...from placing those splendid harbours which lie opposite you at the disposal of a foreign fleet?”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: Speech in Bristol (22 April 1889), quoted in The Times (24 April 1889), p. 6

Hostility, War, Lie, Time

“There...is the necessity for freedom of speech and the arts. We have to scrutinize all the advances of society to judge whether they are cruel or frustrate cruelty, and for that purpose we must hear the evidence of all persons affected by their operation and of all persons qualified by experience or learning or speculative gifts to form an interesting opinion on what those operations might be. It is therefore necessary that all classes of men should be given the fullest opportunity to express themselves without constraint, not only out of admiration for an abstraction , but as a practical measure toward human survival. It is also necessary that the artist, of whatsoever kind, should be free to anatomize the spirit, so that we can comprehend the battlefield that is this life, and which are the troops of light and which of darkness, and what light may be, and darkness.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

Source: "I Believe", in I Believe : The Personal Philosophies of Certain Eminent Men and Women Of Our Time edited by Clifton Fadiman. New York : Simon and Schuster, 1939.

Life, Men, Art, Freedom

“What a book a Devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horridly cruel works of nature!”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Letter to J.D. Hooker, 13 July 1856
Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements

Books, Nature

“No sooner was the Baltic open to our merchants, than corn was bought up there for importation into England; at the same time the continent was glutted with English goods, which, because the supply greatly exceeded the demand, were sold at less than their prime cost, and upon which the foreign governments soon laid new duties...to prevent the ruin of their own manufactures. This might have been a salutary lesson, if nations were ever rendered wise by experience; it might have taught us that, however willing one part of this nation might be to see the other ruined by the free admission of foreign grain, foreign governments would never consent to have their fabrics destroyed by the unrestricted introduction of British goods. It is a sound maxim in politics, whatever it may be in morals, that charity begins at home.”

Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet

'On the Corn-Laws', The Quarterly Review, Vol. LI. (March & June 1834), p. 231
1830s

Home, Time, Parting

“The factory doesn't like to hear too much talk about things it doesn't believe in. Contrary to what you may have heard, the factory has never found a single problem caused by ghosts. So if you meet any ectoplasmic spirits up there in the high crane, I suggest you be polite and they'll probably be polite right back. You're up there alone for fourteen hours a day, and you might find it's nice to have someone to talk to.”

Megan Whalen Turner (1965) American children's writer

The Foreman
Instead of Three Wishes, Factory

Problem

“There was no question that I was deeply afraid of what might happen to me if the "condition" continued. I was much more concerned about the possibility of a growing mental illness than a physical deterioration. I had studied enough psychology and had enough psychologist and psychiatrist friends to compound such fears. Moreover, I was afraid to discuss the matter with these friends. I was afraid that I would then be classified as their "patients," and lose the closeness that equality (normalcy) brings. Non-professional friends in business and community would be worse. I would be labeled a freak or psychotic, which could seriously affect my life and the lives of those close to me. Finally, it seemed to be something to keep from my family. It seemed unnecessary that they worry along with me.”

Robert Monroe (1915–1995) American founder of The Monroe Institute

Journeys Out of the Body (1971), Chapter 2. Search and Research

Life, Fear, Family, Communication

“One might think that through ecstasy we would have access to a world as far from reality as that of the dream.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

The repugnant can become desirable, affection cruelty, the ugly beautiful, faults qualities, qualities black miseries.
Quote in 'Le phénomene de l'extase', in 'Minotaure' 1933; as quoted in Dali and Me, Catherine Millet, - translation Trista Selous -, Scheidegger & Spiess AG, 8001 Zurich Switzerland, p. 133
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1931 - 1940

World, Dreams, Thinking, Reality

“I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything. There are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask "Why are we here?"”

Richard Feynman book The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

I might think about it a little bit, and if I can't figure it out then I go on to something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose — which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell. Possibly. It doesn't frighten me. Source: No Ordinary Genius (1994), p. 239, from interview in "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" (1981): video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEwUwWh5Xs4&t=48m10s

Thinking

“If you think about things that happen, as being computations... a computation in the sense that it has definite rules... You follow them many steps and you get some result. ...If you look at all these different computations that can happen, whether... in the natural world... in our brains... in our mathematics, whatever else, the big question is how do these computations compare. ...Are there dumb ...and smart computations, or are they somehow all equivalent? ...[T]he thing that I ...was ...surprised to realize from ...experiments ...in the early 90s, and now we have tons more evidence for ...[is] this ...principle of computational equivalence, which basically says that when one of these computations ...doesn't seem like it's doing something obviously simple, then it has reached this ...equivalent layer of computational sophistication of everything. So what does that mean? ...You might say that ...I'm studying this tiny little program ...and my brain is surely much smarter ...I'm going to be able to systematically outrun [it] because I have a more sophisticated computation ...but ...the principle ...says ...that doesn't work. Our brains are doing computations that are exactly equivalent to the kinds of computations that are being done in all these other sorts of systems. ...It means that we can't systematically outrun these systems. These systems are computationally irreducible in the sense that there's no ...shortcut ...that jumps to the answer.”

Stephen Wolfram (1959) British-American computer scientist, mathematician, physicist, writer and businessman

Stephen Wolfram: Fundamental Theory of Physics, Life, and the Universe (Sep 15, 2020)

World, Mathematics, Question, Nature

“I have outlived the diagnosis, I’ve been able to receive and hear and process some of the most wonderful, nice things about me that I might not have ever heard had I not gotten sick. Again think, how many people who pass away never hear the eulogies, never hear the thank-yous? I’ve been very lucky, folks, in I can’t tell you how many ways.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

2020s, I’ve Had a Year to Think About What’s Important (2020)

People, Way, Thinking

“Be thy best thoughts to work divine addressed;
Do something,— do it soon — will all thy might;
An angel's wing would droop if long at rest,
And God Himself inactive were no longer blessed.”

Carlos Wilcox (1794–1827) American poet

quoted in Three Thousand Selected Quotations From Brilliant Writers (1909) by Josiah H. Gilbert, p. 3
Poetry

God, Angels

“I often think of others who hunger and thirst for something more, for whom the Catholic Church is a very intimidating but compelling presence. They must overcome misunderstandings about what the Catholic Church teaches, and fears about what it might mean to live in the Catholic Church. Patient pastoral work can resolve much of this.”

Jeffrey N. Steenson (1952) American bishop

Source: Seeking the pearl of great price https://mercatornet.com/seeking_the_pearl_of_great_price/8854/ (October 22, 2009)

Hunger, Fear, Thinking

“As new technologies search out and lace over every interstice in the net of global communication, we find ourselves with increasingly less excuse for…slack. And that, I would argue, is what the World Wide Web, the test pattern for whatever will become the dominant global medium, offers us. Today, in its clumsy, larval, curiously innocent way, it offers us the opportunity to waste time…It will probably evolve into something considerably less random, and less fun — we seem to have a knack for that — but in the meantime, in its gloriously unsorted Global Ham Television Postcard Universes phase, surfing the Web is a procrastinator’s dream. And people who see you doing it might even imagine you’re working.”

William Gibson book Distrust That Particular Flavor

"The Net Is a Waste of Time," The New York Times Magazine, July 14, 1996.
Distrust That Particular Flavor (2012)

People, World, Dreams, Way

“In the age of wooden television in the South where I grew up, leisure involved sitting on screened porches, smoking cigarettes, drinking iced tea, engaging in conversation, and staring into space. It might also involve fishing. Sometimes the Web does remind me of fishing.”

William Gibson book Distrust That Particular Flavor

"The Net Is a Waste of Time," The New York Times Magazine, July 14, 1996.
Distrust That Particular Flavor (2012)

Age, Drink, Fish, Tea

“If you want an average, successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1) Become the best at one specific thing. 2) Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things”

Timothy Ferriss book Tools of Titans

Life, School, Success

“When one sees, the variety and abundance of beautiful and bloodless fruits that gorge the markets of civilisation and considers the amount of art available for cooking and compounding this abundance, and considers, too, what might be still further accomplished in the production and preparation of foods by scientific attention to the matter, it seems so strange, so sad, and so frightful, that man, elected by the accidents of evolution to be the model and schoolmaster of the world, and adapted so signally to a guiltless diet, should continue to perpetrate in the daylight of the twentieth century the barbarous, blood-sucking atrocities of the reptile.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), Is Man a Plant-Eater?, p. 130

World, Sadness, Food, Beauty

“Mary teaches us in prayer, in the Rosary, that’s one thing; but in those cultural traditions as well – in the traditions of the Garifuna people, in the traditions of the Maya, the Kriol, the Mestizo, are all round our country – ways that bring us together, across generations, and help us to squeeze that poison out of our society. So newly-elected Bishop Lawrence Nicasio: lead us; guide us; show us how to use the ruguma, just as Jesus said: Remain in my love, that my love might be in you and your love might be complete; that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete. This is my command; love one another, as I have loved you. So show us how to integrate the daily prayer of the Rosary, as Mary instructed us at Fatima; teach us how to live the Garifuna greeting: darangila, luma, esieni – peace and love”

Christopher Glancy (1960) Second bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Samoa-Pago Pago.

Roman Catholic Church Installs New Bishop Larry Nicasio https://edition.channel5belize.com/archives/146238 (May 15, 2017)

Love, People, Making love, Peace

“Anyone who is of a thoughtful, philisophical cast of mind will occasionaly be struck by the appearance of certain organizing principles of history. The forms these principles seem to take inevitably depends upon one's specific obsession. For a mornachist, history is a struggle of classes of economic civil war. An agriculturalist sees the dynamic of populations, land, and availability of food; a philosopher might speak of the will to power or the will to sythesis; a theologian of the will of God.”

Matthew Stover book Blade of Tyshalle

(II.2) Del Rey, p. 100
Blade of Tyshalle (2001)

God, War, Food, History

“Speech is silvern, Silence is golden; or, as I might rather express it: speech is of time, silence is of eternity.”

Thomas Carlyle book Sartor Resartus

As the Swiss inscription says: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden
Bk. III, ch. 3.
1830s, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834)

Silence, Time

“Both Stoicism and Epicureanism — the apathetic acceptance of defeat, and the effort to forget defeat in the arms of pleasure — were theories as to how one might yet be happy though subjugated or enslaved; precisely as the stoicism of Schopenhauer and the despondent epicureanism of Renan were in the nineteenth century the symbols of a shattered revolution and a broken France.”

Will Durant book The Story of Philosophy

The Story of Philosophy (1926)

Happiness, Pleasure, Effort, Forgetting

“[I]f they were negotiating with a foreign country on a matter which might threaten war, it was so far from embarrassing the negotiation, that it would strengthen it, to place ourselves in a position to repel any sudden and unforeseen attack.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1845/jun/13/maritime-defences#column_524 in the House of Commons in favour of rearmament (13 June 1845) 1840s

War, Country

“In a movie, however, you might see an actor playing a character, and the actor may be a super grumpy person in real life, and that will, of course, come through. But you tend to think that’s just a character choice. But when you can see a long-running show and someone has made significant personal changes in their lives, you can really see that come across on screen.”

Andrew Francis (1985) Canadian actor

Interview With Actor Andrew Francis, “Chesapeake Shores” https://mydevotionalthoughts.net/2019/09/interview-with-actor-andrew-francis-chesapeake-shores-2.html (September 25, 2019)

Life, Thinking, Change, Personality

“I'm the guy in the eighth grade who did not go across the floor and ask the girl to dance for two reasons. One is, she might say no and I'd be embarrassed; two, she might say yes and I'd have to dance…”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

1980s

Guy, Girl, Dance

“The gross perversion and destruction of motherhood by the abortionist filled me with indignation, and awakened active antagonism. That the honourable term 'female physician' should be exclusively applied to those women who carried on this shocking trade seemed to me a horror. It was an utter degradation of what might and should become a noble position for women.”

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) England-born American physician, abolitionist, women's rights activist

p. 30 https://books.google.com/books?id=GHkIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA30 Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895)

Women

“Large families were really in fashion [in Victorian England], they were seen as a status symbol, they were seen as an example of how the man was very virile. The reality was that, like Victoria, people were pregnant repeatedly. Every three months or so they might fall pregnant, so the average woman was pretty much pregnant or about to be pregnant for most of her early married life.”

Kate Williams (historian) (1974) British historian

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b06hh19v
Peter Snow Returns to the Future: Kate Williams
BBC
16 October 2015
2 May 2021

Life, People, Family, Fashion

“You might well remember that nothing can bring you success but yourself.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Success

“If we could learn to like ourselves, even a little, maybe our cruelties and angers might melt away.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Learning, Anger

“You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Imagination, Understanding, Knowledge

“If you are going to make first contact with an intelligent alien race,” said Cantabrigia Five, “dropping huge strip-mining robots into their homeland might not be your best move.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

“Five Thousand Years Later” (p. 830)
Seveneves (2015), Part Three

Intelligence

“If history was any guide, those best at violence might end up ruling over everyone else.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

“Five Thousand Years Later” (p. 684)
Seveneves (2015), Part Three

History

“There's a little more ego involved in these jobs than people might realize.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

People

“Although no credible evidence exists that the speed of light can be exceeded, writers are willing to embrace the possibility that light might be outpaced somehow.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

Never underestimate the persuasive power of somehow.
2010s

Light, Speed

“Gentlemen, ideas outlive men; ideas outlive all earthly things. You who fought in the war for the Union fought for immortal ideas, and by their might you crowned the war with victory.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

[Great applause.] But victory was worth nothing except for the truths that were under it, in it, and above it. We meet tonight as comrades to stand guard around the sacred truths for which we fought. [Loud and prolonged cheers.] And while we have life to meet and grasp the hand of a comrade, we will stand by the great truths of the war. ["Good," "good," and loud cheers.] Many convictions have sunk so deep into our hearts that we can never forget them. Think of the elevating spirit of the war itself. We gathered the boys from all our farms and shops and stores and schools and homes, from all over the Republic. They went forth unknown to fame, but returned enrolled on the roster of immortal heroes. [Great applause.] They went in the spirit of the soldiers of Henry at Agincourt, of whom he said. 'For he today that sheds his blood with me. Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile. This day shall gentle his condition.'
1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)

Men, War, Idea, Victory

“God might not care about financial standing, but He was the only one.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: The Expanse, Abaddon's Gate (2013), Chapter 39 (p. 398)

God

“In order to hear Love’s words, you must allow Love to approach. However, when it does draw near, we fear what it might say to us, because Love is free and is not ruled by our will or by what we do.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Love has always passed me by

Love, Fear, Drawing

“In solitude, they will discover the love that might otherwise arrive unnoticed. In solitude, they will understand and respect the love that left them.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Solitude

Love, Understanding, Solitude

“[Mucius] might have accomplished something more successful in that camp, but never anything more brave.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXIV: On despising death

Success

“I had to get them out. I couldn't leave them, could I? I never thought about what might happen to me- I didn't have time to think about it.”

Jack Bamford (1937) Recipient of the George Cross

From an interview in 2010 with Michael Ashcroft, quoted in George Cross Heroes (2010) by Michael Ashcroft, p. 236

Thinking, Time

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

Robert Lewandowski (1988) Polish association football player

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

Problem, Past

“I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong… I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

Source: Curious Character

Way, Feeling, Thinking, Universe

“A genuine era of happiness is only possible when we aren’t clouded by the uncertainties of aging and when bearing and raising children is truly considered a blessing. No citizen should be left to fear that he or she might not be able to meet the basic requirements of life.”

Park Geun-hye (1952) eleventh President of South Korea

Excerpts from inaugural address (February 25, 2013)

Life, Happiness, Children, Age

“Once I'm committed to a role, I will go very deep into it, even when I'm not at work. I'll keep on studying the script, maybe 40 or 50 times. I might call a scriptwriter at three in the morning to say I've thought of something new.”

Tony Leung (1962) Hong Kong actor

"'It never gets any easier'" in The Guardian (23 February 2004) https://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/feb/23/1

Study, Time

“Filmmaking is a journey. Some people are lucky, they get instant success but for others it’s a process, it’s not something that can be achieved in a day. You might even get success overnight but the effort, the dedication, the passion and the love for making films are a continuous process.”

Rima Das (1982) Indian Assamese film maker

Hindustan Times Article - Filmmaking is a journey, says Rima Das - 22 May 2020 https://www.hindustantimes.com/entertainment/filmmaking-is-a-journey-says-rima-das/story-a1CstyaT4LaGfdBrJ8AzMM.html - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20210728190259/https://www.hindustantimes.com/entertainment/filmmaking-is-a-journey-says-rima-das/story-a1CstyaT4LaGfdBrJ8AzMM.html

Love, People, Effort, Passion

“Brain/body relationships might depend upon a chorus of individual hormones... which are released together to sing hormonal harmonies to the body.”

Richard Bergland neuroscientist

The Fabric of Mind (1985)

Singing, Dependency

“Don’t judge others who disagree with your views too harshly. You might just find yourself holding those same views a few years or decades down the line.”

Yasir Qadhi (1975) Pakistani-American preacher and imam

“Be careful of laughing at others for perhaps Allah might forgive their ignorance and not forgive you arrogance.”

Yasir Qadhi (1975) Pakistani-American preacher and imam

Yasir Qadhi https://quotesdownload.com/yasir-qadhi-quotes/

Forgiveness

“Having been a tubercular kid with a malformed physique, I have a dread of any situation where the shedding of garments might be required. I can't even swim.”

John Cooper Clarke (1951) English performance poet

Source: I Wanna Be Yours (2020), p. 172.

“The time is now to do whatever you dream of. Don't wait for tomorrow coz you might be gone -Edy kasawuli”

Edykasawuli7

Dreams, Time, Waiting

“Time might fly
girls may cry
lights may die
but the skies don't lie
It'll all make perfect sense
if you follow me
Come follow me now”

Example (musician) (1982) English rapper and singer

"Skies Don't Lie" (song) ("Skies Don't Lie" on YouTube (with lyrics)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJToHBj8Eb4 Studio albums, Playing in the Shadows (2011)

Lie, Girl, Sense, Light

“If some people in power here were to think, oh no you’re smaller and you’re weaker, my job is to take care of you, then might not be a bad place. It is simplistic, but I think there is some truth in that.”

Yasmin Ahmad (1958–2009) Malaysian film director

discussing humility and power dynamics in art, filmmaking, screenwriting, Malaysia and the World TEDxKuala Lumpur - TEDxKL - Yasmin Ahmad - 6/3/09 at 9 Min 42 Sec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_f_3FiiTYk - 30 July 2009 - Archive http://archive.today/2015.06.30-222010/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_f_3FiiTYk The Star Newspaper Article with TedxKL Link - 7 TED Talks that Malaysians should check out https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/people/2016/07/19/seven-ted-talks-that-malaysians-should-really-check-out/ - 19 July 2016 - Archive http://archive.today/2021.08.21-082901/https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/people/2016/07/19/seven-ted-talks-that-malaysians-should-really-check-out/ From Yasmin Ahmad

People, Truth, Thinking

“I'm afraid that Jesus coming as a thief, he might be hanged this time, instead of the crucifixion. Theft is prohibited. Even God doesn't like thieves.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God, Time

“If we decide to become mature enough, we might end up forcing some angels to become unemployed. We would take great care of ourselves without needing a guardian angel.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Angels

“The book might be the same, but it is obvious that the minds and our understandings are not the same at all.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Books, Understanding

“The Dark Ages may return, the Stone Age may return on the gleaming wings of Science, and what might now shower immeasurable material blessings upon mankind, may even bring about its total destruction. Beware, I say; time may be short.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Post-war years (1945–1955) Source: The Sinews of Peace https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1946/s460305a_e.htm speech, Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946.

Age, Science, Time

“Right now, the industry might have gotten bigger. More people may be watching films. Those are positive aspects. But diversity in Korean cinema has decreased a lot since then. There are more female film students in schools.”

Moon So-ri (1974) South Korean actress

On highlighting the need for diversity in Korean film industry in "Now a director and scriptwriter, actress Moon So-ri speaks about her film" in The Korea Herald (6 Septmeber 2017) http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170906000677

People, School

“She wasn’t actually going to lie, but there was…well, there might be an element of flexibility.”

Genevieve Cogman The Invisible Library

Source: The Invisible Library (2015), Chapter 23 (p. 322)

Lie

“Of course, there might be some influence in my performances, but it’s not as if I intentionally sought out those experiences for my acting career. For actors, everyone goes through a difficult period early on and you do these sorts of jobs.”

Song Kang-ho (1967) South Korean actor

As quoted in "Interview: Song Kang-ho, Parasite" in Cinevue (5 February 2020) https://cine-vue.com/2020/02/interview-song-kang-ho-parasite.html

“Man was made in the image of God; that like, I take it, might be able to see like; and to see God is ... the life of the soul.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

On Infants' Early Deaths

Life, God, Soul

“Strive with all your might to bring your interior activity into accord with God, and you will overcome exterior passions.”

Arsenius the Great (354–449) Desert Father

Sayings of the Desert Fathers, as translated by Benedicta Ward, SLG (Cistercian Publications: 1975), Saying 9, Page 10

God, Passion

“As men, you stand at the center of the universe. You spout pearls of wisdom that shape the future of the world. So when your female friend comes to you, you might wonder: ‘Is she hoping to share her sadness with me? No, she must be hoping to learn something from me!’”

Yang Li (1992) Chinese stand-up comedian

Source: "The ‘Punchline Queens’ Ripping Into Chinese Comedy’s Boys’ Club" in Sixth Tone https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1006067/the-punchline-queens-ripping-into-chinese-comedys-boys-club (21 August 2020)

Wisdom, Men, World, Sadness

“What channels the energy of our total being to produce anything that might be within the boundaries of possibility is known as will.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Source: The Eagle's Gift, (1981)

“Private prisons are direct sources of profit for the companies that run them, but public prisons have become so thoroughly saturated with the profit-producing products and services of private corporations that the distinction is not as meaningful as one might suspect.”

Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete?

Source: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Chapter Five

“I might like to try things I haven’t attempted before, whether it’s working with new production teams or utilising my own ideas for innovative designs. I would enjoy a path like that, where I can take part in the creative process.”

Liu Wen (model) (1988) Chinese model

Source: "Liu Wen opens up about fame, responsibility and finding meaning in her career" in Vogue https://vogue.sg/liu-wen-cover-vogue-singapore-leslie-zhang/ (1 March 2021)

Idea, Parting

“My responsibility as a supermodel is to put fame aside and use my actions to encourage those who might need support, so that others also feel motivated on their own journeys.”

Liu Wen (model) (1988) Chinese model

Source: "Liu Wen opens up about fame, responsibility and finding meaning in her career" in Vogue https://vogue.sg/liu-wen-cover-vogue-singapore-leslie-zhang/ (1 March 2021)

Feeling, Motivation, Support

“If you sit with your memories, you might as well become a plant.”

Rabih Alameddine (1959) Lebanese-American painter and writer.

Source: On the dilemma faced by his protagonist in The Angel of History in “Rabih Alameddine: 'I think we lose something once we get accepted'” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/09/rabih-alameddine-the-angel-of-history in The Guardian (2016 Oct 9)

Memory