Quotes about moment
page 44

“Everything is in decline the moment you stop giving the artist freedom. That goes for everywhere, but it is happening in America right now. I think record companies are at great fault. In general, they don’t want to develop talent, but rather get the most out of them in the short term. They’re steering people to do things they perhaps wouldn’t do but have to do and not everyone has the integrity to say “No way.” People are hungry and they have to make money and take care of their families, so it’s a great pressure. Only when you can afford it from an artistic or financial point of view can you express what you want to express.”

Joe Zawinul (1932–2007) austrian composer and pianist

On how the record industry in America represses artist freedom and talents from upcoming artists
Prasad interview (1997)

Money, People, Family, Way

“The day that my stepfather left was hard, though. Renee sat in a chair in the living room, wearing a pair of navy shorts and a purple polo shirt. She was sobbing into her hands. Her face was pressed into the side of the chair. I thought - and I will never forget this - I don't ever want to be like that. I love my mother, but in that moment, I saw her as weak. I knew that she could survive without a man, but she wanted a partner so badly that she let him ruin her life.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

pg. 47
Pretty Mess book (2018)

Love, Life, Forgetting

“Did I tell you that I had quite a nice letter from Winston [Churchill]? I thought I ought to send him a line but I wasn't sure whether I should get an acknowledgement! I think he is the right man at the moment and I always did feel that war would be his opportunity. He thrives in that environment.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to J. C. C. Davidson (22 June 1940), quoted in Robert Rhodes James (ed.), Memoirs of a Conservative: J. C. C. Davidson's Memoirs and Papers, 1910-1937 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969), p. 427.
1940s

War, Feeling, Thinking

“He had come on her that morning in a moment of disarray; her face had been pale and altered, and the diminution of her beauty had lent her a poignant charm. That is how she looks when she is alone! had been his first thought; and the second was to note in her the change which his coming produced.”

Edith Wharton book The House of Mirth

"The House of Mirth" http://www.readprint.com/chapter-10542/The-House-of-Mirth-Edith-Wharton (1905), bk. 1, ch. 6

Beauty, Change

“It's a mere moment in a man's life between the All-Star Game and an old timer's game.”

Vin Scully (1927) American sports broadcaster

During the 1980 Major League Baseball All-Star Game held at Dodger Stadium

Life, Game, Star

“Greenock was one of the great centres of the sugar trade…Then came foreign competition, aided by bounties; and your trade declines so seriously that only the very best, the very richest, the most enterprising, the most inventive can possibly retain their hold upon it. If there had been no bounties and no unfair competition of this kind what would have happened? In the last 20 or 30 years the consumption of sugar throughout the world has increased enormously. The consumption in this country has increased enormously; and you would have had your share…if normal conditions and equal fairness had prevailed; and at this moment in Greenock, quite independently of the other industries you may have found to occupy you, there would have been in sugar alone ten times as many men employed as there were in the most palmy days of the trade. But normal conditions have not obtained. You have been the sufferers; and, as I have said, a great number of your refineries have been closed, have disappeared altogether. The capital invested in them has been lost, and the workmen who work in them—what has become of them?”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

Speech in Greenock (7 October 1903), quoted in The Times (8 October 1903), p. 8.
1900s

Men, World, Suffering, Time

“These days too many children's movies are infected by the virus of Winning, as if kids are nothing more than underage pro athletes, and the values of Vince Lombardi prevail: It's not how you play the game, but whether you win or lose. This is a movie that breaks with that tradition, that allows its kids to be kids, that shows them in the insular world of imagination and dreaming that children create entirely apart from adult domains and values. There was a moment in the film when Rodriguez hit a line drive directly at the pitcher's mound, and I ducked and held up my mitt, and then I realized I didn't have a mitt, and it was then I also realized how completely this movie had seduced me with its memories of what really matters when you are 12.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-sandlot-1993 of The Sandlot (7 April 1993) Reviews, Three star reviews

Children, World, Dreams, Imagination

“The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

Prologue p. 6
The Sabbath (1951)

Wealth

“"Found the short story collection, PIGEONS FROM HELL by Robert E. Howard the creator of Conan the Barbarian when I was thirteen, or fourteen. It was the first dark fantasy and heroic fantasy I’d ever read. In that moment I knew not only did I want to be a writer, but this is what I wanted to write." ~ Laurel K. Hamilton, About Laurel K. Hamilton,”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

http://www.laurellkhamilton.org/Laurell.html LaurelKHamilton.com
About

Hell, Reading

“One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now, out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

" A Child's Christmas in Wales http://www.undermilkwood.net/prose_christmas.html", from Quite Early One Morning (1954)

Sleep, Distant, Christmas, Sea

“I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation — the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence.”

Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception

Pages 160-61
The Doors of Perception (1954)

“"Is that true," I asked, "that song?"
"It is a metaphor," said Mrs. Davis, "it has metaphorical truth."
"And the end of the mechanical age," I said, "is that a metaphor?"
"The end of the mechanical age," said Mrs. Davis, "is in my judgment an actuality straining to become a metaphor. One must wish it luck, I suppose. One must cheer it on. Intellectual rigor demands that we give these damned metaphors every chance, even if they are inimical to personal well-being and comfort. We have a duty to understand everything, whether we like it or not–a duty I would scant if I could." At that moment the water jumped into the boat and sank us.”

Donald Barthelme book Sixty Stories

"At The End Of The Mechanical Age".
Sixty Stories (1981)

Truth, Age, Understanding, Water

“You always back off at the exact moment when you're about to tell the other person exactly what she needs to hear.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Homecoming saga, The Ships Of Earth (1994)

Personality

“.. the function of art work is.... the renewal of memories of moments of perfection.”

Agnes Martin (1912–2004) American artist

remark in 1973; as quoted by Amy Flanagan in [file:///C:/Users/Fons/Downloads/The%20Subtle%20Emotive%3B%20Agnes%20Martin.pdf 'The Subtle emotive; Material and Experience in the Works of Agnes Martin'], essay redraft, 2015, p. 1
1970's

Art, Memory, Perfection

“The universe has a finite velocity which limits not only the spread of its events, but also the speed of our perceptions. The moment of actuality slips too fast by the slow, coarse net of our senses.”

George Kubler (1912–1996) American art historian

Source: The Shape of Time, 1982, p. 18; as cited in Lee (2001, p. 47)

Sense, Universe, Speed

“It is said by parrot-minded critics that Owen was "a man of one idea," whereas he was a man of more ideas than any public man England knew in his day. He shared and befriended every new conception of moment and promise, in science, in education, and government. His mind was hospitable to all projects of progress; and he himself contributed more original ideas for the conduct of public affairs than any other thinker of his generation…. Because some of his projects were so far reaching that they required a century to mature them, onlookers who expected them to be perfected at once, say he "failed in whatever he proposed." While the truth is he succeeded in more things than any public man ever undertook. If he made more promises than he fulfilled, he fulfilled more than any other public man ever made. Thus, he was not a man of "one idea" but of many. Nor did his projects fail. The only social Community for which he was responsible was that of New Harmony, in Indiana; which broke up through his too great trust in uneducated humanity — a fault which only the generous commit. The communities of Motherwell and Orbiston, of Manea, Fen, and Queenwood in Hampshire were all undertaken without his authority, and despite his warning of the adequacy of the means for success. They failed, as he predicted they would. Critics, skilled in coming to conclusions without knowing the facts, impute these failures to him.”

George Holyoake (1817–1906) British secularist, co-operator, and newspaper editor

Memorial dedication (1902)

Truth, Education, Communication, Idea

“He was silent a moment, struggling. He said finally, “But you had a right to be angry.”
“Yes. But not to hurt those I love, or myself.””

Patricia A. McKillip book The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

Source: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (1974), Chapter 12, p. 322.

Love, Hurt

“I saw the Colonel empty his revolver and go down under ten wild boys. A moment later they tossed his bleeding head into the air and started a ball game. Just at dusk the wild boys got up and padded away. They left the bodies stripped to the skin many with genitals cut off. The wild boys make little testicles in which they carry their hasish and khat.”

William S. Burroughs book The Wild Boys

The Wild Boys (1971)

Game, Boy

“I always considered an idle Life, as a real evil, but, a life of such hurry, such constant hurry, leaves us scarcely a moment for reflection or for the discharge of any other then the most immediate and pressing concerns.”

Edward Rutledge (1749–1800) American politician

As quoted in John and Edward Rutledge of South Carolina (1997) by James Haw; ISBN 0-820-31859-0), p. 233

Life, Evil

“Our lives are so full of activity and "chatter" it’s difficult to find quiet time… Those are the moments that are the most creative for me. The location is less important than the choice to turn other things off. Because I find that the quietest times of my life speak the loudest.”

Regina E. Dugan (1963) American businesswoman, inventor, and technology developer

As quoted in "The CNN 10 : Thinkers" (2013)

Life, Time

“The writer, who as an engineer has spent most of his life in factories, is inclined to look at the basis for investment from a technological point of view… Consider … the class of industrial investments only… The situation is one of entrepreneurs and boards of directors considering, from time to time, various ’possibilities of investment’, such as extra lathes or looms, an extension to a factory, a venture in some completely new product, and so on. It is helpful to think of these ’opportunities for investment’ as existing, in a given situation, in great number and variety, whether they are at that moment under active consideration or not. When any such possibility is considered it is assessed in respect of ’expected profitability’. One may conveniently think of all possibilities of investment as ’quanta’ that can be placed in a schedule of small ranges of expected profitability according to these assessments. The placement of a given ’opportunity for investment’ on this schedule has some ’margin of uncertainty”

Arnold Tustin (1899–1994) British engineer

a curious analogy with the case of the quanta of physics
Source: The Mechanism of Economic Systems (1953), p. 103; As cited in: Prices Revalued as Information: Circuit Elements, online document 2013

Life, Thinking, Time, Help

“My health has not improved. Often I get so excited that I cannot bear with myself. Then again I become calm, as I am at this present moment of writing, although I am already fatigued. Next Monday, if God permit, I will go to a bull-fight, and I wish you were able to accompany me.”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

letter to his friend Zapater, April 23, 1794; in Goya; Noticias biograficas, Francisco Zapater y Gomez, Zaragoza, 1868; first published in 'La Perseverencia', p. 53; as quoted in Francisco Goya, Hugh Stokes, Herbert Jenkins Limited Publishers, London, 1914, p. 203-204
1790s

God, Health, Fight

“No, my friend, Germany will not declare war on us [at this moment]. But in my opinion the European situation is such that a great armed conflict is inevitable at some time which I cannot foresee, and our duty is to prepare for the worst.”

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) French politician

Letter to Georg Brandes (9 January 1906), quoted in David Robin Watson, Georges Clemenceau: A Political Biography (London: Eyre Methuen, 1974), pp. 220-221.

War, Time

“But, as we consider the totality of similarly broad and fundamental aspects of life, we cannot defend division by two as a natural principle of objective order. Indeed, the “stuff” of the universe often strikes our senses as complex and shaded continua, admittedly with faster and slower moments, and bigger and smaller steps, along the way. Nature does not dictate dualities, trinities, quarterings, or any “objective” basis for human taxonomies; most of our chosen schemes, and our designated numbers of categories, record human choices from a cornucopia of possibilities offered by natural variation from place to place, and permitted by the flexibility of our mental capacities. How many seasons (if we wish to divide by seasons at all) does a year contain? How many stages shall we recognize in a human life?”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap between Science and the Humanities (Harmony, 2003), p. 82

Life, Way, Nature, Sense

“I felt both a state of envy and contempt. The yacht itself was not vulgar, but I smelt something vulgar about owning it…A few moments later I set off back to my dull daily penal colony of an existence on the far side of the dream, as Adam left the Garden of Eden perhaps…except I knew there were no Gods, and nothing was going to bar my return…”

John Fowles book Daniel Martin

Daniel Martin (1977)

God, Dreams, Envy

“I've been lucky since I've had this job, getting two amazingly dramatic moments like that. You sort of had a license to go to nine or ten on the Richter scale.”

Ian Darke (1950) British association football and boxing commentator

2010s, 2014, Voice of the Americans (2014)

“The radicals want something of the quality of the hot moments of social life—the periods of accelerated collective mobilization—to pass into the cold moments—the ordinary experience of institutionalized social existence.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: False Necessityː Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy (1987), p. 433

Life

“[W]hat good to us is the gods' knowledge if we can't get it from them? How could one communicate with the gods? Our ancestors (while they were alive!) stumbled on an extremely ingenious solution: divination.

We all know how hard it is to make the major decisions of life: should I hang tough or admit my transgression, should I move or stay in my present position, should I go to war or not, should I follow my heart or my head? We still haven't figured out any satisfactory systematic way of deciding these things. Anything that can relieve the burden of figuring out how to make these hard calls is bound to be an attractive idea.

Consider flipping a coin, for instance. Why do we do it? To take away the burden of having to find a reason for choosing A over B. We like to have reasons for what we do, but sometimes nothing sufficiently persuasive comes to mind, and we recognize that we have to decide soon, so we concoct a little gadget, an external thing that will make the decision for us. But if the decision is about something momentous, like whether to go to war, or marry, or confess, anything like flipping a coin would be just too, well, flippant.

In such a case, choosing for no good reason would be too obviously a sign of incompetence, and, besides, if the decision is really that important, once the coin has landed you'll have to confront the further choice: should you honor your just-avowed commitment to be bound by the flip of the coin, or should you reconsider? Faced with such quandaries, we recognize the need for some treatment stronger than a coin flip. Something more ceremonial, more impressive, like divination, which not only tells you what to do, but gives you a reason (if you squint just right and use your imagination).

Scholars have uncovered a comically variegated profusion of ancient ways of delegating important decisions to uncontrollable externalities. Instead of flipping a coin, you can flip arrows (belomancy) or rods (rhabdomancy) or bones or cards (sortilege), and instead of looking at tea leaves (tasseography), you can examine the livers of sacrificed animals (hepatoscopy) or other entrails (haruspicy) or melted wax poured into water (ceroscopy). Then there is moleosophy (divination by blemishes), myomancy (divination by rodent behavior), nephomancy (divination by clouds), and of course the old favorites, numerology and astrology, among dozens of others.”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Life, God, War, Way

“He thought about that for a moment, wondered what he should say. The truth or nothing. The truth.”

Octavia E. Butler book Adulthood Rites

Part IV “Home” chapter 5 (p. 501)
Adulthood Rites (1988)

Truth

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a difficult moment for America. I, unfortunately, will be going back to Washington after my remarks. Secretary Rod Paige and the Lt. Governor will take the podium and discuss education. I do want to thank the folks here at Booker Elementary School for their hospitality. Today we've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country. I have spoken to the Vice President, to the Governor of New York, to the Director of the FBI, and have ordered that the full resources of the federal government go to help the victims and their families, and to conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act. Terrorism against our nation will not stand. And now if you would join me in a moment of silence. May God bless the victims, their families, and America. Thank you very much.”

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

Remarks on After Two Planes Crash Into World Trade Center https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Remarks_After_Two_Planes_Crash_Into_World_Trade_Center (11 September 2001) 2000s, 2001

God, World, Education, School

“He had come there dissatisfied with his work, even though his multi-kinetic work was admired and winning him professional recognition. However, at that moment, other ideas were gestating and he wanted to add what he called a "fifth dimension" to his art - that of artificial intelligence. […] : [At the colony, ] he was able to turn his thoughts inward, hoping to discover the new methods and direction that would more deeply satisfy his creative needs. It was at this point, while watching the motions and patterns of sun on leaves in the New Hampshire woods one morning, that Tsai finally achieved the revelatory breakthrough that changed his art and liberated his creative energies. As he put it, he wanted to create "natural movements in dynamic equilibrium, with intelligence," and he found his solution in an unlikely combination of natural phenomenon, the precedent of Gabo's singular (and unrepeated) kinetic sculpture, and the new resource of contemporary analog and digital technology. Speaking of this moment of revelation, Tsai said that he had quite deliberately turned himself into "a sort of plant": facing his chair into the sunshine in the morning, he turned his body in stages throughout the day, mulling over ways of make an "art that presented the observer with natural movements in dynamic equilibrium, and art that could convey the awe I felt while watching sunbeams shimmer through forest leaves." But a work that would "shimmer" simply did not do enough either for the artist or viewer, Tsai concluded. It must also respond in some way to the observer; it would have to work on a new feedback principle and actually engage the observer directly. In short, a cybernetic sculpture was required. To create such radically participatory works, he understood, would require that he draw on his engineering skills rather than suppress them, as he had been trying to do in his period of oil painting.”

Sam Hunter (1923–2014) American art historian

Source: The Cybernetic Sculpture of Tsai Wen-Ying, 1989, p. 67

Hope, Art, Way, Intelligence

“The bodies breathe, feed, store up strength, and then in an erotic moment are shattered, are spent and drained utterly, that they may bequeath their spirit to their sons. What spirit? The drive upward!”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

“When the evening falls and the daylight is fading,
From within me calls — could it be I am sleeping?
For a moment I stray, then it holds me completely.
Close to home, I cannot say.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

"Evening Falls"
Song lyrics, Watermark (1988)

Home, Sleep

“If there is one thing more than another better established about the British Constitution it is this, that the Commons, and the Commons alone, have the complete control of supply and ways and means. And what our fathers established through centuries of struggles and of strife, even of bloodshed, we are not going to be traitors to. Who talks about altering and meddling with the Constitution? The Constitutional Party…As long as the Constitution gave rank and possession and power it was not to be interfered with. As long as it secured even their sports from intrusion, and made interference with them a crime; as long as the Constitution forced royalties and ground-rents and fees, premiums and fines, the black retinue of extraction; as long as it showered writs, and summonses, and injunctions, and distresses, and warrants to enforce them, then the Constitution was inviolate, it was sacred, it was something that was put in the same category as religion, that no man ought to touch, and something that the chivalry of the nation ought to range in defence of. But the moment the Constitution looks round, the moment the Constitution begins to discover that there are millions of people outside the park gates who need attention, then the Constitution is to be torn to pieces. Let them realize what they are doing. They are forcing revolution.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Newcastle (9 October 1909), quoted in The Times (11 October 1909), p. 6
Chancellor of the Exchequer

People, Religion, Way, Sport

“Success is brought by continued labor and continued watchfulness. We must struggle on, not for one moment hesitate, nor take one backward step.”

William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) United States Secretary of State

Illinois College Valedictory (1881)

Success

“He's basically the only comedian on telly at the moment and the rest of us are all jealous.”

Jimmy Carr (1972) British comedian and humourist

Howard Read — reported in Leo Benedictus (August 16, 2005) "G2: Arts: Edinburgh: Trendspotting: Carr crash humour", The Guardian.
About

“Teachers frequently talk about moments in which they became students again and how much that made them better teachers. For me, there has been no better way to improve my teaching, specifically my teaching in the composition classroom, than to take up a subject at which I am abysmal.”

Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) academic and Wikipedian

Wadewitz, Adrianne. (August 12, 2013). "What I learned as the worst student in the class" http://www.hastac.org/blogs/wadewitz/2013/08/12/what-i-learned-worst-student-class. HASTAC: Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance Collaboratory. — reprinted and cited in: "How Adrianne Wadewitz learnt to embrace failure" http://www.smh.com.au/world/how-adrianne-wadewitz-learnt-to-embrace-failure-20140425-zqzgx.html. The Sydney Morning Herald. April 25, 2014. Retrieved April 25, 2014.

Way, Teachers

“I'm not sure there can be loving without commitment, although commitment takes all kinds and forms, and there can be commitment for the moment as well as commitment for all time. The kind that is essential for loving marriages-- and love affairs, as well-- is a commitment to preserving the essential quality of your partner's soul, adding to them rather than taking away.”

Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer

Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)

Love, Marriage, Soul, Time

“I would like to have been present, if I could have my choice of all moments in music history, when Stokowski suddenly became conscious of his beautiful hands. That must have been a moment. Like stout Cortez [sic] on a peak in Darien (I know it was Balboa) he saw before him a limitless expanse, a whole uncharted sea that might be subjected to his influence, free from the encumbrance of a baton.”

Oscar Levant (1906–1972) American comedian, composer, pianist and actor

In "Music in Aspic," Harper's Magazine (October 1939) and A Smattering of Ignorance (1940); as quoted in "Lightning Wit Plays On American Musical Scene; Oscar Levant Answers Unspoken Request for 'Information, Please' With Uncensored Comments on Exalted Persons" by Ray C. B. Brown, in The Washington Post (January 14, 1940), p. E4

Beauty, Music, History, Sea

“It's evident that Darwin saw evolution not as progressive or improving, but as an activity that happens moment by moment. From this it is clear that evolution has no plan. It has neither memory nor foresight. No vestige of cosmic strivings from some remote beginning; no prospect of revelatory culmination in some transcendent end.”

Henry Gee (1962) British paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and editor

The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution, by Henry Gee, p. 12

Memory

“Socialists then shift the ground for taking industries into “public ownership”. They then tell us that some industries cannot survive any longer unless they are taken into public ownership, allegedly to protect the public from the effects of their collapse. It all sounds so cosy, and so democratic. But is it true? No, of course it isn't. The moment ownership passes into the name of the public is the moment the public ceases to have any ownership or accountability, and often the moment when it ceases to get what it wants. But it is invariably the moment when the public starts to pay. Pays to take the industry over. Pays the losses by higher taxes. Pays for inefficiencies in higher prices.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Finchley Conservatives (31 January 1976) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102947 Leader of the Opposition

Loss

“When we examine the moments, acts, and statements of all kinds of people- not only the grief and ecstasy of the greatest poets, but also the huge unhappiness of the average soul, as evidenced by the innumerable strident words of abuse, hatred, contempt, mistrust, and scorn that forever grate upon our ears as the manswarm passes us in the streets -- we find, I think, that they are all suffering from the same thing. The final cause of their complaint is loneliness.”

Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) American writer

The Anatomy of Loneliness (1941)

People, Soul, Thinking, Suffering

“I have never had the sort of experience the mystics talk about, never felt a revelation of reality through or beyond nature, never felt like Adam in Paradise, never felt, in direct experience, that the world is wholly other than it seems…The nearest I have come to such experiences are glimpses of my own creative powers…and these are moments or intervals of inspiration rather than vision. I’m not sure that I want it unless I can have clarity about other things with it.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", The "Third Book" Notebooks of Northrop Frye, 1964–1972 (2002), p. 60–1

World, Nature, Reality

“… after you're dead and buried and floating around whatever place we go to, what's going to be your best memory of Earth? … What moment for you defines what it's like to be alive on this planet?”

Douglas Coupland (1961) Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and graphic designer

Generation X (1991)

Memory, Dead

“Geraldine Doogue: I'm intrigued by Anita saying she had to learn about systems. You had to learn about the sociology of systems and structural change, and that was obviously quite a journey for you.Anita Sarkeesian: Yeah, absolutely. I sort of joke about how it was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me, and also the most frustrating for everyone around me. Cause, like, when you start learning about systems, everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic, and you have to point it all out to everyone all the time. So there's a good year of my life where I was the most obnoxious person to be around. And then you settle into it, you start to understand, like, oh people have been living within these systems, and it was just sort of a liberating moment for me. You learn how to pick and choose your battles and that sort of thing.”

Anita Sarkeesian (1983) American blogger

"How to Be a Feminist" panel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzcs4ti_bdI?t=32m12s (March 8, 2015), All About Women Festival 2015, Sydney, Australia, @32:12

Life, People, Understanding, Learning

“Here she drew forth a small pocket-book, took from it a card and a pencil and, after meditating a moment, wrote a few words. It is our privilege to look over her shoulder, and if we exercise it we may read the brief query: […].”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

XLIV
The Portrait of a Lady (1881)

Books, Exercises, Reading

“The greatest American industry—why has no one ever said so?—is the industry of using words. We pay tens of millions of people to spend their lives lying to us, or telling us the truth, or supplying us with a nourishing medicinal compound of the two. All of us are living in the middle of a dark wood—a bright Technicolored forest—of words, words, words. It is a forest in which the wind is never still: there isn’t a tree in the forest that is not, for every moment of its life and our lives, persuading or ordering or seducing or overawing us into buying this, believing that, voting for the other.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“The Taste of the Age”, pp. 27–28
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)

Life, People, Truth, Lying

“I remember, when I was young,
How easily my mood changed from sad to gay.
… But now that age comes,
A moment of joy is harder and harder to get.”

Bai Juyi (772–846) Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty

"The Chrysanthemums in the Eastern Garden" (A.D. 812)
Arthur Waley's translations

Age, Sadness, Mood, Change

“In societies with fewer opportunities for amusement, it was also easier to tell a mere wish from a real desire. If, in order to hear some music, a man has to wait for six months and then walk twenty miles, it is easy to tell whether the words, "I should like to hear some music," mean what they appear to mean, or merely, "At this moment I should like to forget myself." When all he has to do is press a switch, it is more difficult. He may easily come to believe that wishes can come true.”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

Interlude: West's Disease", p. 245
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

Music, Appearance, Waiting, Forgetting

“In 1936, when the last issue of 'Abstraction-Création' appeared, Europe was in a deep slump. Hitlerism was rampant in Germany and many artists had already fled there… There were evil portents on the horizon; night was about to descend over Europe. It was at that moment that America took up the case of abstract art. The association of 'American Abstract Artists' was founded that year, and it was also in 1936 that the exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York… At about this time a flood of refugees – artists, intellectuals, and men of science – began to pour into the United States.”

Michel Seuphor (1901–1999) designer, draughtsman, painter

Source: Abstract Painting (1964), p. 103

Men, Art, Appearance, Science

“The man, whose head and heart had in a desperate emergency and amidst a despairing people paved the way for their deliverance, was no more, when it became possible to carry out his design. Whether his successor Hasdrubal forbore to make the attack because the proper moment seemed to him to have not yet come, or whether, more a statesman than a general, he believed himself unequal to the conduct of the enterprise, we are unable to determine. When, at the beginning of [221 B. C], he fell by the hand of an assassin, the Carthaginian officers of the Spanish army summoned to fill his place Hannibal, the eldest son of Hamilcar. He was still a young man--born in [247 B. C], and now, therefore, in his twenty-ninth year [221 B. C]; but his had already been a life of manifold experience. His first recollections pictured to him his father fighting in a distant land and conquering on Ercte; he had keenly shared that unconquered father's feelings on the Peace of Catulus (also see Treaty of Lutatius), on the bitter return home, and throughout the horrors of the Libyan war. While yet a boy, he had followed his father to the camp; and he soon distinguished himself. His light and firmly-knit frame made him an excellent runner and fencer, and a fearless rider at full speed; the privation of sleep did not affect him, and he knew like a soldier how to enjoy or to dispense with food. Although his youth had been spent in the camp, he possessed such culture as belonged to the Phoenicians of rank in his day; in Greek, apparently after he had become a general, he made such progress under the guidance of his confidant Sosilus of Sparta as to be able to compose state papers in that language. As he grew up, he entered the army of his father, to perform his first feats of arms under the paternal eye and to see him fall in battle by his side. Thereafter he had commanded the cavalry under his sister's husband, Hasdrubal, and distinguished himself by brilliant personal bravery as well as by his talents as a leader. The voice of his comrades now summoned him--the tried, although youthful general--to the chief command, and he could now execute the designs for which his father and his brother-in-law had lived and died. He took up the inheritance, and he was worthy of it. His contemporaries tried to cast stains of various sorts on his character; the Romans charged him with cruelty, the Carthaginians with covetousness; and it is true that he hated as only Oriental natures know how to hate, and that a general who never fell short of money and stores can hardly have been other than covetous. But though anger and envy and meanness have written his history, they have not been able to mar the pure and noble image which it presents. Laying aside wretched inventions which furnish their own refutation, and some things which his lieutenants, particularly Hannibal Monomachus and Mago the Sammite, were guilty of doing in his name, nothing occurs in the accounts regarding him which may not be justified under the circumstances, and according to the international law, of the times; and all agree in this, that he combined in rare perfection discretion and enthusiasm, caution and energy. He was peculiarly marked by that inventive craftiness, which forms one of the leading traits of the Phoenician character; he was fond of taking singular and unexpected routes; ambushes and stratagems of all sorts were familiar to him; and he studied the character of his antagonists with unprecedented care. By an unrivaled system of espionage--he had regular spies even in Rome--he kept himself informed of the projects of the enemy; he himself was frequently seen wearing disguises and false hair, in order to procure information on some point or other. Every page of the history of this period attests his genius in strategy; and his gifts as a statesman were, after the peace with Rome, no less conspicuously displayed in his reform of the Carthaginian constitution, and in the unparalleled influence which as a foreign exile he exercised in the cabinets of the eastern powers. The power which he wielded over men is shown by his incomparable control over an army of various nations and many tongues--an army which never in the worst times mutinied against him. He was a great man; wherever he went, he riveted the eyes of all.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

The History of Rome, Volume 2 Translated by W.P. Dickson
On Hannibal the man and soldier
The History of Rome - Volume 2

Life, Men, Money, Hate

“Our point of departure is to serve the people whole-heartedly and never for a moment divorce ourselves from the masses, to proceed inall cases from the interests of the people and not from one's self-interest or from the interests of a small group, and to identify our responsibility to the people with out responsibility to the leading organs of the Party.”

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

On Coalition Government (1945)

People, Departure

“But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Kubla Khan

Kubla Khan (1797 or 1798)

Lovers

“The stories of the Manet brothers [ Edouard and her future husband Eugène Manet ] tell about all the horrors we are likely to face, they [in Paris, during the war between France and Germany] are almost enough to discourage even the bravest of us. [But] you know they [the Manet brothers] always exaggerate, and at the moment they see everything in the blackest possible light.”

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) painter from France

In a letter of Berthe, from Paris, to Edma who stayed then in Brittany, 1870; as quoted in The Private Lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe; Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2006, p. 72
1860 - 1870

War, Light, Future

“The Chan School of Buddhism promotes a life of wisdom, advocating the use of wisdom to solve troubles and problems in the human realm. We aim to practise the transcendental way of cultivation which is of a higher level state of consciousness. As an example, Buddhist monastics and those who practise well have seen the true nature of the mortal world. They are completely selfless and they practise cultivation in the human realm with an ultimate goal of transcending the six realms of existence. The practice to transcend the six realms of existence is based on the transcendental way of cultivation. The Pure Land school of Buddhism is one of the many marvellous methods of cultivation. When a person's life is coming to an end, he recites the holy name of of the Amitabha Buddha and prays to the Amitabha Buddha wholeheartedly. He needs to learn the Pure Land school of Buddhism. He has to let go of the many afflictions and fetters of the human world in order to ascend to to Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss or to the Guan Yin Citta Pure Land. When we follow their method by reciting the the holy name of Guan Yin Bodhisattva continuously, the Bodhisattva will come to receive us. During the dying moment, there are some who are unable to recite the Great Compassion Mantra in time, unable to memorize the words, while others may not even manage to recite the Heart Sutra in time. In that case, they can continuously recite " Namo the Greatly Compassionate and Greatly Merciful Guan Yin Bodhisattva" until the Bodhisattva comes to save them.”

Jun Hong Lu (1959) Australian Buddhist leader

(April 2017)[citation needed]
Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door

Life, Wisdom, World, School

“Small moments of natural wonder (as a youth), seemed to have prepared me to appreciate Japanese haiku.”

William J. Higginson (1938–2008) American writer

Amazon.com talk 2000

Youth, Nature

“In case the buyer wishes this act of integration of the work of art with himself to take place, Yves Klein must.... plus two witness, throw half of the gold received in the ocean, into a river or in some place of nature where this gold cannot be retrieved by anyone. From this moment on, the immaterial pictorial sensitivity zone belongs to the buyer absolutely and intrinsically.”

Yves Klein (1928–1962) French artist

Source: before 1960, Ritual for the Relinquishment of the immaterial Pictorial Sensitivity Zones', Yves Klein, 1957-59, p. 207

Art, Nature

“Such was the man who was sent on an embassy to Ajmir, in order that the Rai (Pithaura) of that country might see the right way without the intervention of the sword, and that he might incline from the track of opposition into the path of propriety, leaving his airy follies for the institutes of the knowledge of Allah, and acknowledging the expediency of uttering the words of martyrdom and repeating the precepts of the law, and might abstain from infidelity and darkness, which entails the loss of this world and that to come, and might place in his ear the ring of slavery to the sublime Court (may Allah exalt it!) which is the centre of justice and mercy, and the pivot of the Sultans of the worldand by these means and modes might cleanse the fords of good life from the sins of impurity'…'The army of Islam was completely victorious, and 'an hundred thousand grovelling Hindus swiftly departed to the fire of hell'… After this great victory, the army of Islam marched forward to Ajmir, where it arrived at a fortunate moment and under an auspicious bird, and obtained so much booty and wealth, that you might have said that the secret depositories of the seas and hills had been revealed….'While the Sultan remained at Ajmir, he destroyed the pillars and foundations of the idol temples, and built in their stead mosques and colleges, and the precepts of Islam, and the customs of the law were divulged and established”

Hasan Nizami Persian language poet and historian

About the conquest of Ajmer (Rajasthan) Hasan Nizami: Taju’l-Ma’sir, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 213-216. Also quoted (in part) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.

Life, Secret, World, Justice

“Our choices from diet to outlook to emotional state directly alter our neural and gene activity at every moment.”

Rudolph E. Tanzi (1958) neurologist

Twitter quote - Dr. Rudy Tanzi (@RudyTanzi), https://twitter.com/RudyTanzi/status/601019940255232001

“What is the flesh and blood compounded of
But a few moments in the life of time?
This prowling of the cells, litigious love,
Wears the long claw of flesh-arguing crime.”

Allen Tate (1899–1979) American poet, essayist and social commentator

I, from Collected Poems (1970).

Love, Life, Time

“The day after Pearl Harbor our Navy's position in the Pacific was extremely grave. The bulk of our major ships had been put out of commission for a year; only our small Asiatic Fleet under Admiral Hart in the Philippines and portions of the Pacific Fleet that had been absent from Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack were in fighting condition in the Pacific. Even Hawaii might be attacked and overrun at any moment. And in the Atlantic the Axis submarines were destroying a tremendous tonnage of our shipping within sight of our very shores. Then, even at the lowest of the war tide, the decision was made, and correctly: first fight for time, especially in the Pacific- and then assemble the might to conquer first Italy and then Germany, and then inevitably Japan must succumb.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

From King's Foreword in Battle Stations! Your Navy In Action (1946) by Admirals of the U.S. Navy, p. 10

War, Decision, Time, Fight

“For aspiring law students I would like to say in your career, never try to show off. There is a tremendous amount of knowledge to be learnt, there is a tremendous amount of experience to be had in the field of law and no one can say “I’m on top and I know everything”. No, you don’t. The moment you say, you know everything, I’m afraid that’s the beginning of your downfall. It’s a never-ending process of learning and humility is essential because you can never learn the law. At the age of 92 my senior Jamsetjee Kanga used to say “I’m still learning” and he really meant it. If an odd chap walked into his chamber, he would just pick up a case and tell us about it, he was like a wizard. He could spot the most important point in the case, unlike us.”

Fali Sam Nariman (1929) Indian politician

Conversation with the living legend of law - Fali Sam Nariman

Age, Law, Knowledge, Learning

“Symbolic castration - the final moment of analysis is reached when the subject is ready to accept this fundamental loss, to consent to symbolic castration as a price to be paid for access to his desire.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

147
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Loss

“June 9, 1907 (April 29, lunar calendar), 9:00am
[…]
I am fully satisfied. The Seki is satisfied, is satisfied. At this moment, as the Seki's position becomes critical, all of you have gathered to seek the resolution for his illness, and united your hearts in spite of your problems, to pray for his recovery once again for ten more years of life. I commend your sincerity. It is a sincerity deserving of My free and unlimited workings. You need not worry whether he will recover or not. Firmly calm your minds. All of you take heart and rejoice, take heart and rejoice.”

Iburi Izō (1833–1907)

Osashizu entry, translated in An Anthology of Osashizu Translations p. 433.
Last words recorded in the Osashizu.

Life, Problem, Heart, Sincerity

“The ethereal is gained by simply doing one thing, consciously. "I made no haste in my work, but rather made the most of it," said Thoreau. What is divine is simply being attentive to what you are doing in the moment you are doing it, assuming that that thing is not merely stupid”

Curtis White (1951) American academic

i.e., anything you have to do to receive money
"The spirit of disobedience: an invitation to resistance"

Money, Stupidity

“This is one of the most important moments in the life of our country. I stand here before you filled with deep pride and joy: — pride in the ordinary, humble people of this country. You have shown such a calm, patient determination to reclaim this country as your own, - and joy that we can loudly proclaim from the rooftops — free at last!”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1990s, Victory speech (1994)

Life, People, Joy, Country

“Yeah. Look at the space, Ian! Look at the space! Oh, great strike. But, look at this Ian. How bad is that? Simple, no? Ugh! Yes, he gets a bit lucky. That's a lovely strike by Toni Kroos. But is anybody going to close down? Is anybody going to be, make it hard to beat? Are they going to be organized, Brazil? Because at the moment it looks as if eleven players are just running around the field with no idea. Yeah.”

Steve McManaman (1972) English footballer

2010s, 2014 FIFA World Cup, Brazil v. Germany (2014)

Love, Idea

“We seldom know what we're hearing when we hear something for the first time, but one thing is certain: we hear it as we will never hear it again. We return to the moment to experience it, I suppose, but we can never really find it, only its memory, the faintest imprint of what it really was, what it meant.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Let the Great World Spin (2009), Book One: All Respects to Heaven, I Like it Here

Memory, Time

“The loss was sudden and terrible, and for their families, the grief is heavy. Our nation shares in your sorrow and in your pride. And today we remember not only one moment of tragedy, but seven lives of great purpose and achievement.”

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

2000s, 2003, Columbia space shuttle disaster (February 2003)

Family, Loss

“What appears spectral today will be natural tomorrow. Where are such signs and works? How do we recognize the genuine ones? Like everything genuine, its inner life guarantees its truth. All works of art created by truthful minds without regard for the work's conventional exterior remain genuine for all times... The present isolation of the rare, genuine artist is absolutely unavoidable for the moment... This fact leads us to the idea that we are standing today at the turning point of two long epochs, similar to the state of the world fifteen hundred years ago, when there was also a transitional period without art and religion - a period in which great and traditional ideas died and new and unexpected ones took their place.”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

1911 - 1914, The 'Savages' of Germany' (1912)

Life, Truth, World, Religion

“Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized – the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old…. When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.”

Ted Kennedy (1932–2009) United States Senator

and http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123086375678148323.html http://www.wnd.com/2009/09/108646/ a private letter from August 3, 1971 in response to New York's legalization of abortion

Love, Life, War, Children

“The moment you accept God's ordering, that moment your work ceases to be a task, and becomes your calling; you pass from bondage to freedom, from the shadow-land of life into life itself.”

Henry Clay Trumbull (1830–1903) Union Army chaplain

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 378.

Life, God, Freedom

“I would advise you not to expect too much happiness, even from the fulfillment of all your wishes. The moment you have distinguished yourself you become an object of envy and malice; men whom you believed to be lovers of knowledge you will then find to be lovers only of fame, and haters of all knowledge that has not come from themselves. You will find that a life of science has in it no superiority to any other, unless it is pursued from a higher principle than the mere ambition of notoriety, and that demagogue or a philosopher differ only in the objects of their selfishness. As you will now have experienced how unsatisfying even the pursuit of knowledge is when insulated from higher objects, I hope, if you have not been fortunate enough to begin the study earlier, that you will devote yourself to the most extraordinary of all subjects, one which infinitely surpasses the mechanism of the heavens or the chemistry of the material world, the revelation of your duty and the destiny of man as contained in The Bible — a book which occupied the best hours of the manhood of Newton, of Locke, and of Euler.”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

In a 1830 letter to James David Forbes, as found in Life and letters of James David Forbes, p. 40.

Life, Men, Happiness, Books

“I believe that freedom is not a constant attribute that "we have" or "we don’t have"; perhaps there is only one reality: the act of liberating ourselves in the process of using choices. Every step in life that heightens the maturity of man heightens his ability to choose the freeing alternative.
I believe that "freedom of choice" is not always equal for all men at every moment. The man with an exclusively necrophilic orientation; who is narcissistic; or who is symbiotic-incestuous, can only make a regressive choice. The free man, freed from irrational ties, can no longer make a regressive choice.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Credo (1965)

Life, Men, Reality, Freedom

“You know this moment in time
Is all my life
Every day is each
day that's passed
Every person alive
is everyone's who's died”

John Frusciante (1970) American guitarist, singer, songwriter and record producer

Every Person
Lyrics, Shadows Collide with People (2004)

Life, Time, Personality

“Trent could see the despair in the boy's eyes, his body drooping with weariness, the trembling of his chin, the tears staining his cheeks. He sensed the imminent moment of success, felt the sweet thrill of triumph, everything else cast aside for the moment, all doubts gone. This was what he was hired to do, what he was born to do. You are what you do. Ah, Lottie. Ah, Sarah. Five minutes later, the boy uttered the words Trent needed to hear. As the machine whirred, recording the bruised and broken voice.”

Robert Cormier book The Rag and Bone Shop

Source: The Rag and Bone Shop (2000), p. 142

Boy, Sense, Tear, Success

“We relinquished our freedom that day, and we were more than happy to see it go. From that moment on we lived in true freedom, the freedom to point to someone else and say “They told me to do it! It’s their fault, not mine.” The freedom, God help us, to say “I was only following orders.””

Max Brooks book World War Z

World War Z

God, Happiness, Freedom, Help

“As a child, I devoted much of my leisure to drawing sketches of relatives and friends, familiar sights and scenes, a view that suddenly moved me or appealed to me. I always concentrated on depicting nature as I saw or felt it, in terms of lines, and obtaining a kind of psychological likeness which would convey the personality of my model or the mood of the moment.”

Gabriele Münter (1877–1962) German painter

Source: Interview by Edouard Roditi (1958), p. 114

Mood, Nature, Drawing, Personality

“It was perhaps a bad moment to undertake an architectural guide to the City of London. There are, at the time of writing, still whole areas lying waste after bombing in the Second World War. A number of the City churches, also, are not yet repaired or restored. Yet the publication of this volume was much asked for; so I decided to undertake it in spite of these disadvantages.”

Nikolaus Pevsner (1902–1983) German-born British scholar

The Buildings of England

War, World, Lying, Time

“If there could only be more time, he thought. But, of course, there never was. There was not the time right now and there would never be. No matter how many centuries he might be able to devote, there'd always be so much more knowledge than he'd gathered at the moment that the little he had gathered would always seem a pittance.”

Clifford D. Simak book Way Station

Source: Way Station (1963), Ch. 23

Knowledge, Time

“The whole world has its eye to day on London. The whole world is represented in London, and they are all coming here to be with us in what, to the vast majority of our people, will be a period of rejoicing for many days, culminating in that age-long service in the Abbey a week to-day. In the Abbey on this day week our young King and his Queen, who were called suddenly and unexpectedly to the most tremendous position on earth, will kneel and dedicate themselves to the service of their people, a service which can only be ended by death. I appeal to that handful of men with whom rests peace or war to give the best present to the country that could be given at that moment, to do the one thing which would rejoice the hearts of all the people who love this country, that is, to rend and dissipate this dark cloud which has gathered over us, and show the people of the world that this democracy can still at least practise the arts of peace in a world of strife.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1937/may/05/supply in the House of Commons (5 May 1937). 1937

Love, Death, Men, War

“At any moment there is certainly not balanced trade between the various areas of the habitable globe that happens to be under separate national governments — there is an ever-changing pattern of deficits and surpluses.”

Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist

Source: Contributions to Modern Economics (1978), Chapter 19, The Need For A Reconsideration, p. 218

Change

“The reason that gets me is, and the greatest part of my job and what I do, is the humanity of it and there’s certain moments where that really cuts through.”

Kylie Minogue (1968) Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter and actress

Daily Mirror 7 March 2011 http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/tv/2011/03/07/kylie-minogue-flees-tv-interview-in-floods-of-tears-watch-the-video-115875-22971486/

Parting

“Music is the fountainhead: everything comes from that. At the moment, I'm getting intoxicated on Beethoven, and I use Pink Floyd for inspiration while making a film. Their music contains a sound for almost everything I do.”

Peter Weir (1944) Australian film director

Portrait of the artist: Peter Weir, director (2011)

Music

“My good Lord and friend Sala, - [I] enjoyed the blissful pleasure enjoyed by your friendship... When I reached the city [The Hague] again yesterday, I have taken the fishes out of the basket more than 12 times, to show them... That day, friend Sala, belongs among the most pleasant of my life, all moments have kept me alive until now, always sitting [fishing] in the boat, swaying with the bobbers in the field of view..”

Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch (1824–1903) Dutch painter of the Hague School (1824-1903)

version in original Dutch / citaat van J. H. Weissenbruch, in het Nederlands: Heer en vriend Sala, - Het zalige genot door uwe vriendschap volop genoten.. .Toen ik gisteren weder de stad [Den Haag] had bereikt, had ik niet minder dan 12 maal de fluiten [vissen] uit den mand gelegt om dezen ten toon te stellen.. .Dien dag, vriend Sala, behoord onder de schoonste van mijn leven, alle oogenblikken hebben mij tot heden levendig gehouden, altijd zittende [vissen] in den boot, schommelende met den dobbers in 't gezicht..
Source: J. H. Weissenbruch', (n.d.), pp. 34-35

Life, Friendship, Pleasure, Fish

“But when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money — booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”

W. H. Murray

The Scottish Himalaya Expedition (1951) The "Goethe couplet" referred to here is from an extremely loose translation of Faust 214-30 done by John Anster in 1835. Reference:
This quote, or one similar to it, is often attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, however it was written by Mr. Murray near the beginning of the The Scottish Himalaya Expedition.

Money, Truth, Books, Dreams

“But in that we started so many things in that moment, we brought to their ends many others that have been the subject matter of this account, and so here is where I draw a line across the leaf and call it the end.”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Final sentence of the novel, possibly addressing criticism of the author’s previous endings, Part 13, "Reconstitution"
Anathem (2008)

Drawing

“Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamour — of youth!… A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore, the time to remember, the time for a sigh, and — goodbye!”

Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-British writer

Night — Goodbye! Youth, A Narrative http://www.gutenberg.org/files/525/525.txt (1902)

Youth, Time, Night

“The practice of creating chartered joint-stock companies of a modern type seems to have begun at the commencement of the seventeenth century; and the formation of the East India Company is one of the earliest, if not the very earliest, examples. At first, it appears, the 'joint stock' of the company was separately made up for each ship; perhaps for each voyage. But, in the year 1612 the Company made the momentous resolve to have one joint stock for the whole of its affairs, and thus inaugurated a new epoch. The East India Company, or Companies, (for there were two of them), were followed by the Hudson's Bay Company (1670), the existence of which was recognized by statute in 1707, and by the Bank of England and the notorious South Sea Company.”

Edward Jenks (1861–1939) British legal scholar

Source: A Short History Of The English Law (First Edition) (1912), Chapter XVI, New Forms Of Personal Property, p. 287

Appearance, Sea

“The Tibetan Book of the Dead is ostensibly a book describing the experiences to be expected at the moment of death, during an intermediate phase lasting forty-nine (seven times seven) days, and during rebirth into another bodily frame. This however is merely the exoteric framework which the Tibetan Buddhists used to cloak their mystical teachings. … The esoteric meaning, as it has been interpreted in this manual, is that it is death and rebirth of the ego that is described, not of the body. Lama Govinda indicates this clearly in his introduction when he writes: "It is a book for the living as well as the dying." The book's esoteric meaning is often concealed beneath many layers of symbolism. It was not intended for general reading. It was designed to be understood only by one who was to be initiated personally by a guru into the Buddhist mystical doctrines, into the pre-mortem-death-rebirth experience. These doctrines have been kept a closely guarded secret for many centuries, for fear that naive or careless application would do harm.”

Timothy Leary (1920–1996) American psychologist

The Psychedelic Experience (1964), p. 12

Death, Secret, Books, Fear

“The Party uses the lies up to the last moment as a cover-up. Thus it intimidates the political opponents and provides its Party comrades with sedatives. It is so unbelievably simple for the current gang to lie to this German people and to lead these fools around by the nose.”

Friedrich Kellner (1885–1970) German Justice inspector

March 26, 1945; Vol. 2, p. 920.
Diary (1939 - 1945)

People, Lie, Fools

“This music is forever for me. It's the stage thing, that rush moment that you live for. It never lasts, but that's what you live for.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

Time magazine (27 October 1975)

Music

“Acting is not a lofty performance; it is simply the source of becoming and existing transparently. Acting, I find, is the art of frothing to the surface every raw and honest emotion. The moment an actor pretends, he loses his audience forever”

Masiela Lusha (1985) Albanian actress, writer, author

Statement at the Masiela Lusha board page http://www.masielalusha.com/board.php

Art

“Probably nature itself gave man the ability to lie so that in difficult and tense moments he could protect his nest, just as do the vixen and wild duck.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Difficult People https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/chekhov/anton/c51wif/chapter2.html (1886)

Lie, Nature

“I know of no duty of the Court which it is more important to observe, and no powers of the Court which it is more important to enforce, than its power of keeping public bodies within their rights. The moment public bodies exceed their rights] they do so to the injury and oppression of private individuals, and those persons are entitled to be protected from injury arising from such operations of public bodies.”

Nathaniel Lindley, Baron Lindley (1828–1921) English judge

Roberts v. Gwyrfai District Council (1899), L. R. 2 C. D. 614.

Personality

“The poet creates it; the people by recitation recreate it. Poet and reader (hearer) are moments of the same reality.”

Edward Hirsch (1950)

How to Read a Poem And Fall in Love with Poetry (1998)

People, Reality

“A strange gratitude for those I disagree with. They keep me from having to take too seriously the moments when I disagree with myself.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#185
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Gratitude

“In spite of so many stubborn lies, at every moment, at every opportunity, the truth comes to light, the truth of life and death, of my solitude and my bond with the world, of my freedom and my servitude, of the insignificance and the sovereign importance of each man and all men.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Ethics of Ambiguity

Part I : Ambiguity and Freedom
The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
Context: In spite of so many stubborn lies, at every moment, at every opportunity, the truth comes to light, the truth of life and death, of my solitude and my bond with the world, of my freedom and my servitude, of the insignificance and the sovereign importance of each man and all men. There was Stalingrad and there was Buchenwald, and neither of the two wipes out the other. Since we do not succeed in fleeing it, let us therefore try to look the truth in the face. Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting [C'est dans la connaissance des conditions authentiques de notre vie qu'il nous faut puiser la force de vivre et des raisons d'agir].

Life, Death, Men, Truth

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.”

Joseph N. Welch (1890–1960) American lawyer

Highlighted section cited in: William Lee Miller (2012) Two Americans: Truman, Eisenhower, and a Dangerous World. p. 309
Army–McCarthy hearings (9 June 1954)
Context: Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us. Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale and Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale and Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.

Thinking, Gauge

“Now I know how it can change, just like that. They can be applauding you one moment, and booing you the next. The thing to know is that you have done a good job, then it doesn’t hurt to be criticized.”

Cary Grant (1904–1986) British-American film and stage actor

Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)
Context: I used to hide behind the façade that was Cary Grant … I didn’t know if I were Archie Leach, or Cary Grant, and I wasn’t taking any chances. … Another thing I had to cure myself of was the desire for adulation, and the approbation of my fellow man. It started when I was a small boy and played football at school. If I did well they cheered me. If I fumbled I was booed. It became very important to me to be liked. It’s the same in the theater, the applause and the laughter give you courage and the excitement to go on. I thought it was absolutely necessary in order to be happy. Now I know how it can change, just like that. They can be applauding you one moment, and booing you the next. The thing to know is that you have done a good job, then it doesn’t hurt to be criticized. My press agent was very indignant over something written about me not too long ago. “Look,” I told him. “I’ve known this character for many years, and the faults he sees in me are really the faults in himself that he hates.”

Change, Hurt

Quotes about moment page 44

Quotes about moment
page 44