Quotes about month

A collection of quotes on the topic of month, year, time, timing.

Quotes about month

“It's been years, months, days, but he still can't get out of his mind those horrible, inhuman images, monstrous creations of subjects who look the same as everyone else; equal to him.”

José Baroja book Un hijo de perra y otros cuentos

“Percy smiled at her - that sarcastic troublemaker smile that had annoyed her for years but eventually had become endearing. His sea-green eyes were as gorgeous as she remembered. His dark hair was swept to one side, like he'd just come from a walk on the beach. He looked even better than he had six months ago - tanner and taller, leaner and more muscular.

Percy threw his arms around her. They kissed and for a moment nothing else mattered. An asteroid could have hit the planet and wiped out all life, and Annabeth wouldn't have cared.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Life, Smile, Kiss, Sea

“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened… or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move on.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Variant: You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened... or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the f**k on.

Moving On

“I love borders. August is the border between summer and autumn; it is the most beautiful month I know.

Twilight is the border between day and night, and the shore is the border between sea and land. The border is longing: when both have fallen in love but still haven't said anything. The border is to be on the way. It is the way that is the most important thing.”

Tove Jansson (1914–2001) Finnish children's writer and illustrator

Love, Beauty, Way, Autumn

“Tell the truth. If you tell the truth all the time you don't have to worry three months down the line about what you said three months earlier. Truth is always the truth. You won't have to complicate your life by trying to cover up.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Life, Truth, Time

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Variant: You can make more friends in two months by being interested in them, than in two years by making them interested in you.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 52 (in 1998 edition)

Deep, Success, Friendship, Relationship

“I studied Italian five hours a day for many months to ensure I could communicate with the players, media and fans. [Claudio] Ranieri had been in England for five years and still struggled to say ‘good morning’ and ‘good afternoon.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

http://www.goal.com/en/news/1716/champions-league/2009/02/23/1122426/italy-v-england-10-classic-jose-mourinho-quotes Chelsea FC

Communication, Study

“A week of camp life is worth six months of theoretical teaching in the meeting room.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Life

“Susan [Silver] was really busy with one of her bands, and there was about a month where I never left the house. I didn’t go out in public; I didn’t talk to anyone on the phone—I went a little psycho. If I hadn’t been alone so long, I would not have gone as far as I actually went. But one day, I went from wondering what I would look like with a shaved head to ‘That’s pretty cool.’ Then I put my hair in a big envelope and mailed it off to my wife. The funny thing was, I did this really silly, personal thing for no reason, and then all of a sudden it was on MTV News and in Newsweek, and I still hadn’t left the house. I thought it was strange, because I don’t know how anyone found out about my hair, and I don’t know why they cared.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

On why he shaved his head in 1993 ** Interview with Details Magazine, December 1996 https://pitchfork.com/features/article/10081-chris-cornell-searching-for-solitude/, Soundgarden Era

Business, Housing, Personality

“I mean some doctor told me I had six months to live and I went to their funeral.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

“I want to live my next life backwards: You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in a nursing home feeling better every day. Then you get kicked out for being too healthy. Enjoy your retirement and collect your pension. Then when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day. You work 40 years until you're too young to work. You get ready for High School: drink alcohol, party, and you're generally promiscuous. Then you go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, and you have no responsibilities. Then you become a baby, and then… You spend your last 9 months floating peacefully in luxury, in spa-like conditions – central heating, room service on tap, and then… You finish off as an orgasm.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Variations of this piece have also been misattributed to Andy Rooney and Woody Allen. The original source is a variation on a piece by Sean Morey. ( "snopes.com: Andy Rooney on Everything", Snopes.com, 2012-09-09 http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/rooney3.asp, ) Misattributed

Life, Alcohol, School, Way

“Had God Himself intended women to be inferior, He would have ordained it so that mothers would have given birth to daughters at the end of the fifth month of pregnancy. The supply of mother’s milk would naturally have been half of that in case of a son. But that is not the case. How can it be? Is not God just and most merciful?”

Begum Rokeya (1880–1932) Bengali feminist writer and social worker

On God Gives, Man Robs , 1927. http://archive.thedailystar.net/magazine/2005/07/05/reflections.htm

Women, God, Birth, Nature

“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

Smedley D. Butler (1881–1940) United States Marine Corps General, 2 time Medal of Honor recipient and activist

From a speech (1933)

Business, Time, Country

“If one must drink, then let one drink thrice a month, for more is bad. If one gets drunk twice a month, it is better; if one gets drunk once a month, that is better still; and if one doesn't drink at all, that is the best of all.”

Genghis Khan (1162–1227) founder and first emperor of the Mongol Empire

As given in Rashid al-Din's Compendium of Chronicles (Jami' al-tawarikh) ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jami%27_al-tawarikh) (Can find a translated version on google books: http://books.google.com/books?id=d2SWstj6j3AC&lpg=PA142&ots=8Tn8g77BgR&dq=genghis%20khan%20and%20drinking&pg=PA142#v=onepage&q=genghis%20khan%20and%20drinking&f=false)

Drink

“The Police got great credit and praise in the papers for arresting the mother of 12 children one an infant on her breast and those two quiet hard working innocent men who would not know the difference a revolver and a saucepan handle and kept them six months awaiting trial and then convicted them on the evidence of the meanest article that ever the sun shone on it.”

Ned Kelly (1855–1880) Australian bushranger

Jerilderie Letter (1879)

Men, Children, Sun

“I was just walking across the street . . . this guy [a porn producer] stops and he gets off his car and he gives me his card, and i thought about it for about two weeks then you made the mistake of saying yes and going in. and . . . yeah, I did it for about three months, and as soon as I started to gain popularity, that's when I was like, "OK I need to get the F out of here, this is not what I was trying to do whatsoever", I just wanted to let loose and rebel.”

Mia Khalifa (1993) American social media personality and former porn actress

Guy, Cars

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.”

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

Personality, Funny

“For three months,
a person sits and looks at you,
imagining a kiss.”

Etgar Keret (1967) Israeli and polish writer and screenwriter

Imagination, Kiss, Personality

“Learning is to a man as the leaves and branches are to a tree, and it can be said that he should not be without it. Learning is not only reading books, however, but is rather something that we study to integrate with our own way of life.
One who is born into the house of a warrior, regardless of his rank or class, first acquaints himself with a man of military feats and achievements in loyalty, and, listening to just one of his dictums each day, will in a month know 30 precepts. Needless to say, if in a year he learns 300 precepts, at the end of that time he will be much the better.
Thus, a man can divide his mind into three parts: he should throw out those thoughts that are evil, take up those ideas that are good, and become intimate with his own wisdom… I would honor and call wise the man who penetrates this principle, though he lacks the knowledge of a single Chinese character. As for those who are learned in other matters, I would avoid them regardless of how deep their knowledge might be. That is how shallow and untalented this monk is.”

Takeda Shingen (1521–1573) Japanese daimyo of the Sengoku period

William Scott Wilson, ‎Gregory Lee. Ideals of the Samurai: Writings of Japanese Warriors, 1982. p 95

Life, Wisdom, Books, Way

“My mom and I lived at Hollywood and Western, a drug-dealer and prostitute corner. It was pretty terrifying. I got beat up a lot. I saw people have sex in the alleys. I remember I was five years old, and this guy with a trench coat, needles and crack cornered me. Early on, seeing the devastation on my block, seeing heroin addicts, made me think twice about ever getting involved in drugs. It's evil. Once you take that step and experiment, drugs can take over your life. You are not yourself anymore. That's something I never wanted. I didn't have a lot of friends growing up. It was kind of just me and my parents. But because of them, the neighborhood did not have a bad effect on me. My dad introduced me to artists, and every few months we'd go to some hippie doo-dah parade as Mudmen in our underwear, carrying sticks and covered in mud. My mother did everything to get me into the best schools she could find.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm

Life, People, School, Sex

“A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”

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

television address (4 March 1987)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)

People, Heart

“I'll give you an example — in Russia most of the hospitals don't have any pain medicine, they don't have any money. So if you're with kids with cancer, they can have metastases to the bone; which some say is the worst pain a human can experience. So a mother can be in a room with a child who hasn't stopped screaming in five months. …85% of the time I walk in there as a clown they'll stop screaming.”

Patch Adams (1945) Physician, activist, diplomat, author

As quoted in "Entrevista com o médico americano P. Adams" in Roda Viva - Entrevista (13 November 2007)

Money, Pain, Time

“You know, they can't keep me here for more than six months.”

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh

While speaking with a western journalist during proceedings of the Agartala conspiracy trial. Mujib was released within in seven months of his arrest as a result of mass agitation and wide scale civil disobedience in East Pakistan. http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2008/08/04/chintito.htm Quote, Other

“You're going to relegate my history to a month? I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history.”

Morgan Freeman (1937) American actor, film director, and narrator

History

“I had too much praise, too much flattery and fawning over and I needed to remember who I was, where I came from. One time I called a relative in Tupelo. It was Christmas and they were havin' dinner. I asked, 'What?' and she was kind of quiet, then said, 'Meat loaf.' I was shocked as we'd had the best, you know, turkey, ham, steak, everything. She said that it was near the first and they'd run out of money so they just had meat loaf. It hurt me. and so, I ate meat loaf for about eight months, every night, so I'd remember where I came from and to remind me of how many people were unable to have what I did. It was kind of a penance…”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

from the book Blue Star Love by By Maia Chrystine Nartoomid. http://safehaven.0catch.com/quotes.htm,originally

Money, People, Time, Christmas

“Your lack of common sense (can be well judged from the fact) that the evidence of two women is equal to one man, that is a proof of the lack of common sense, and you spend some nights (and days) in which you do not offer prayer and in the month of Ramadan (during the days) you do not observe fast, that is a failing in religion.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Sahih Muslim, Book 001, Number 0142
Sunni Hadith
Context: It is narrated on the authority of 'Abdullah b. Umar that the Messenger of Allah observed: O womenfolk, you should give charity and ask much forgiveness for I saw you in bulk amongst the dwellers of Hell. A wise lady among them said: Why is it, Messenger of Allah, that our folk is in bulk in Hell? Upon this the Holy Prophet observed: You curse too much and are ungrateful to your spouses. I have seen none lacking in common sense and failing in religion but (at the same time) robbing the wisdom of the wise, besides you. Upon this the woman remarked: What is wrong with our common sense and with religion? He (the Holy Prophet) observed: Your lack of common sense (can be well judged from the fact) that the evidence of two women is equal to one man, that is a proof of the lack of common sense, and you spend some nights (and days) in which you do not offer prayer and in the month of Ramadan (during the days) you do not observe fast, that is a failing in religion. This hadith has been narrated on the authority of Abu Tahir with this chain of transmitters.

Women, Religion, Sense, Night

“The happiest days of my life were from sixteen to twenty, during the semestres, when I used to go about, as I have told you I should wish to do, from one restaurateur to another, living moderately, and having a lodging for which I paid three louis a month. They were the happiest days of my life. I was always so much occupied, that I may say I never was truly happy upon the throne.”

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

Barry Edward O'Meara, in Napoleon in Exile : or, A Voice from St. Helena (1822), Vol. II, p. 155
About
Context: "What do you think," said he, "of all things in the world would give me the greatest pleasure?" I was on the point of replying, removal from St. Helena, when he said, "To be able to go about incognito in London and other parts of England, to the restaurateurs, with a friend, to dine in public at the expense of half a guinea or a guinea, and listen to the conversation of the company; to go through them all, changing almost daily, and in this manner, with my own ears, to hear the people express their sentiments, in their unguarded moments, freely and without restraint; to hear their real opinion of myself, and of the surprising occurrences of the last twenty years." I observed, that he would hear much evil and much good of himself. "Oh, as to the evil," replied he, "I care not about that. I am well used to it. Besides, I know that the public opinion will be changed. The nation will be just as much disgusted at the libels published against me, as they formerly were greedy in reading and believing them. This," added he, "and the education of my son, would form my greatest pleasure. It was my intention to have done this, had I reached America. The happiest days of my life were from sixteen to twenty, during the semestres, when I used to go about, as I have told you I should wish to do, from one restaurateur to another, living moderately, and having a lodging for which I paid three louis a month. They were the happiest days of my life. I was always so much occupied, that I may say I never was truly happy upon the throne."

Life, Happiness

“Folk like you always lay the blame on somebody else. If I'd listened to talk like that, I'd've let myself get killed by my own people months ago.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

Veralidaine "Daine" Sarrasri

People

“My body is my work. You have to be patient. Maybe you don’t see the difference after a few months, but after a few years you will see why you can play longer and stay on a higher level longer.”

Robert Lewandowski (1988) Polish association football player

"Robert Lewandowski, a force for Bayern Munich, faces an uphill climb with underdog Poland" https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/06/16/robert-lewandowski-poland-euro-2020/ (June 16, 2021)

“Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it.”

T. Alan Armstrong

“It is all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but it’s no good at all if you don’t have a plan for tomorrow.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Time

“I can last two months on a good compliment.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Where is Polonius?
HAMLET
In heaven. Send hither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i' th' other place yourself. But if indeed you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“During our recent Human Rights Defenders Forum at The Carter Center, it was reported that between two hundred and three hundred children are sold in Atlanta alone each month! Our city is considered to be one of the preeminent human trafficking centers in the United States, perhaps because we have the busiest airport in the world and because, until recently, the penalty for someone convicted of selling another human being was only a $50 fine. A much heavier penalty of up to twenty years’ imprisonment can be imposed by the federal government, but only if there is proof that the trafficking took place across state lines. An analysis by Atlanta social workers found that 42 percent of the sexual exchanges they investigated were in brothels and hotel rooms in the most affluent areas of the city, while only 9 percent were in the poorer neighborhoods in the vicinity of the airport. Like Kara, they too conclude that the primary culprits are the men who buy sexual favors and the male pimps and brothel owners who control the women and garner most of the financial gains.”

Jimmy Carter book A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Source: A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Women, Men, Children, World

“As full of spirit as the month of May, and as gorgeous as the sun in Midsummer.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Sun

“I'm always on the lookout for something good about people. Often months go by.”

Andy Rooney (1919–2011) writer, humorist, television personality

People

“Even the most beautiful scenery is no longer assured of our love after we have lived in it for three months, and some distant coast attracts our avarice: possessions are generally diminished by possession…”

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

The Gay Science (1882)

Love, Beauty, Distant

“From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

World, Feeling, Selfishness

“Don’t be in too much of a rush to be published. There is enormous value in listening and reading and writing—and then putting your words away for weeks or months–and then returning to your work to polish it some more.”

Sharon Creech (1945) American writer of children's novels

Reading

“What trouble have you brought to my doorstep, Beka?" she asked.
"I don't see where blaming me for things that began months ago will be useful," I replied.”

Tamora Pierce book Bloodhound

Source: Bloodhound

“… there was cement in her soul. It had been there for a while, an early morning disease of fatigue, shapeless desires, brief imaginary glints of other lives she could be living, that over the months melded into a piercing homesickness.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Americanah

Source: Americanah

Disease, Soul

“Green was the silence, wet was the light,
the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: 100 Love Sonnets

Light, Silence

“In his early twenties, a man started collecting paintings, many of which later became famous: Picasso, Van Gogh, and others. Over the decades he amassed a wonderful collection. Eventually, the man’s beloved son was drafted into the military and sent to Vietnam, where he died while trying to save his friend. About a month after the war ended, a young man knocked on the devastated father’s door. “Sir,” he said, “I know that you like great art, and I have brought you something not very great.” Inside the package, the father found a portrait of his son. With tears running down his cheeks, the father said, “I want to pay you for this.ℍ “No,” the young man replied, “he saved my life. You don’t owe me anything.ℍ The father cherished the painting and put it in the center of his collection. Whenever people came to visit, he made them look at it. When the man died, his art collection went up for sale. A large crowd of enthusiastic collectors gathered. First up for sale was the amateur portrait. A wave of displeasure rippled through the crowd. “Let’s forget about that painting!” one said. “We want to bid on the valuable ones,” said another. Despite many loud complaints, the auctioneer insisted on starting with the portrait. Finally, the deceased man’s gardener said, “I’ll bid ten dollars.ℍ Hearing no further bids, the auctioneer called out, “Sold for ten dollars!” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. But then the auctioneer said, “And that concludes the auction.” Furious gasps shook the room. The auctioneer explained, “Let me read the stipulation in the will: “Sell the portrait of my son first, and whoever buys it gets the entire art collection. Whoever takes my son gets everything.ℍ It’s the same way with God Almighty. Whoever takes his Son gets everything.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President

Life, God, War, People

“Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we've passed. Or a month, it makes no difference.
So unless were going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes.”

Hugh Laurie book The Gun Seller

Source: The Gun Seller (1996)

Death, Sense, Time

“To write it, it took three months; to conceive it three minutes; to collect the data in it all my life.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Life

“I been shaking two nickels together for a month, trying to get them to mate.”

Raymond Chandler book The Big Sleep

Source: The Big Sleep (1939)

“When I ask how old your toddler is, I don't need to hear '27 months.' 'He's two' will do just fine. He's not a cheese. And I didn't really care in the first place.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

“October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.”

Mark Twain book Pudd'nhead Wilson

Variant: December is the toughest month of the year. Others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, October, August, and February.
Source: Pudd'nhead Wilson

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Variant: Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six month.

Fashion

“And, after all, what is a fashion? From the artistic point of view, it is usually a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

The Philosophy of Dress, The New-York Tribune, 1885. For an analysis see Fashion a Form of Ugliness http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/quotations/fashion-a-form-of-ugliness.html Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Fashion

“It's been months since I last wrote. I've lived in a state of mental slumber, leading the life of someone else. I've felt, very often, a vicarious happiness. I haven't existed. I've been someone else. I've lived without thinking.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Life, Thinking, Happiness

“Oh, I don’t care about Jack. I don’t care for anybody in the whole world but you. I love you, Cecily. You will marry me, won’t you?
You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the last three months.
For the last three months?”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Love, World, Boy

“Playwrights are like men who have been dining for a month in an Indian restaurant. After eating curry night after night, they deny the existence of asparagus.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

As quoted in Contemporary Quotations (1988) by James Beasley Simpson

Men, Night

“I will not sign a 30-day or a 60-day or a 90-day extension. That is just not an acceptable approach. And if we think it’s going to be hard -- if we think it’s hard now, imagine how these guys are going to be thinking six months from now in the middle of election season where they’re all up. It’s not going to get easier. It’s going to get harder. So we might as well do it now -- pull off the Band-Aid; eat our peas. Now is the time to do it. If not now, when?”

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

Regarding stopgap measures for the federal budget, White House press conference (11 July 2011) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/07/11/press-conference-president 2011, Remarks on the economy (July 2011)

Guy, Imagination, Thinking, Time

“We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so. And yet, we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be?
This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.”

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

2015, Remarks after the Umpqua Community College shooting (October 2015)

Love, Death, Family, Law

“And raw in fields the rude militia swarms,
Mouths without hands; maintain'd at vast expense,
In peace a charge, in war a weak defence;
Stout once a month they march, a blustering band,
And ever but in times of need at hand.”

John Dryden book Fables, Ancient and Modern

Source: Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), Cymon and Iphigenia, Line 400.

War, Peace, Time

“In my 10 months as prime minister, I made seven trips to Kashmir. Militancy reduced greatly during the UF rule.”

I. K. Gujral (1919–2012) Indian politician

The Rediff Interview/I K Gujral

“Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 5

Time

“I don't have a trace of moral scruple, when it comes to the state I feel completely free. It's committed such terrible crimes against us all, against our generation, that we have a right to anything. I'm not worried about doing it damage, we'll just be recovering some damages for our entire battered generation. Who taught me how to steal, who made me do it, if not the state? Commandeering, that's the word they used during the war, or expropriating — Versailles called it reclamation. Who taught us how to cheat if not the state — how else would we know what money saved up by three generations could become worthless in a mere two weeks, that families could be swindled out of pastures, houses, and fields that had been theirs for a hundred years? Even if I kill someone, who trained me to do it? Six months on the drill field and then years at the front! We have an excellent case against the state, by God, we'll win in every court. It can never pay off its terrible debt, never give back what it took from us. Once there might have been a reason to have some qualms, back when the state was a good custodian, thrifty, decent, proper. Now that it's behaved like a hoodlum, we have the right to be hoodlums too.”

Stefan Zweig book The Post Office Girl

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

Money, God, War, Family

“Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles away from the home I live in all year round, was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes.
Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes.
And everyday my government gives me a count of corpses created by the military service in Vietnam. So it goes.
My father died many years ago now — of natural causes. So it goes. He was a sweet man. He was a gun nut, too. He left me his guns. They rust.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

Home, Nature, Summer, Night

“I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne. What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.”

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

Remarks of Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama Against Going to War with Iraq (2 October 2002) http://action.barackobama.com/page/share/2002iraqfull; referencing the positions of former Pentagon policy adviser Richard Perle, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and chief Bush political adviser Karl Rove. 2000-03

War, Passion

“I believe we are today crossing the Rubicon, Mr Chairman. In South Africa there can be no turning back. I have a manifesto for the future of our country and we must engage in positive action in the months and years that lie ahead.”

P. W. Botha (1916–2006) South African prime minister

From his National Party Congress Speech in Durban on 15 August 1985

Lie, Future, Country

“Why, it was like reading about France and the French, before the ever memorable and blessed Revolution, which swept a thousand years of such villany away in one swift tidal-wave of blood -- one: a settlement of that hoary debt in the proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow tortures out of that people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong and shame and misery the like of which was not to be mated but in hell. There were two "Reigns of Terror," if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror -- that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”

Mark Twain book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Ch. 13 http://www.literature.org/authors/twain-mark/connecticut/chapter-13.html A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)

Death, Hunger, People, Hell

“It is impossible that the eye should project from itself, by visual rays, the visual virtue, since, as soon as it opens, that front portion [of the eye] which would give rise to this emanation would have to go forth to the object and this it could not do without time. And this being so, it could not travel so high as the sun in a month's time when the eye wanted to see it.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

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

Travel, Time, Sun

“At that time (last spring) [U. S., 1928] I did not consider this medium to be of any signal importance in the world of art; merely a very amusing stunt cleverly executed.... however, wishing to return to Paris, I felt it would be quite justifiable to have an exhibition here, where "clever stunts" are highly appreciated, so I came over 3 months ago and set to work, carving wood and twisting wire. These new studies in wire, however, did not remain the simple modest little things I had done in New York. They are still simple, more simple than before; and therein lie the great possibilities which I have only recently come to feel for the wire medium.”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

1920s, Statement on Wire Sculpture' (1929)

Lie, World, Art, Feeling

“What can I write about Vytautas Juozapaitis? Months ago, a singer with this same name gave one of the most Mozartean accounts of Don Giovanni I've ever experienced: a lean, yet warm sound, exciting and a little on the dangerous side - utterly (and wonderfully) self-absorbed. The man singing Giorgio Germont could not possibly have been this same artist. This was Verdi singing of the highest order - as if to the manor born. A molten, rich expressivity and attention to Verdian line that in its size, detail and musicality recalled the greats: Gorin, Merrill… you get the idea. The name may not trip off American tongues with ease… yet, but in an era often thought bereft of Verdian voices Juozapaitis is the real deal. Every moment of his Germont was filled passion and, like all of the cast members, every word of the Italian was naturally produced and understandable. Mama mia this man's got it!”

Vytautas Juozapaitis (1963) Lithuanian opera singer

Paolo Padillo, "A Traviata of Note: Teatro Lirico d'Europa". Opera - L (March, 2004) http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0403d&L=opera-l&F=&S=&P=15287

Music, Idea, Understanding, Nature

“And then the spring of [19]'48 I toddled off to Paris on a Liberty ship... Yes, and arriving in Le Havre on that Liberty ship and seeing all those—the sun was coming up—and seeing all those ships sunk.. It was hardly... I mean, war, war, war, war…. I went to Paris, and I stayed with Zuka and Louis [Mitelberg] [her husband then, the cartoonist 'Tim']. And I looked for a place—and found it on Rue Gallande. Across the river was Notre Dame. That was all of four dollars a month, with a hole on the stairs as a toilet and a spigot with cold water and one light-bulb. That was all the electricity there was. But this view, I mean, God!... Saint Julien le Pauvre [Greek Orthodox Church, oldest in Paris] was right in front of me. And so I painted there.”

Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) American painter

first side of the first tape
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

God, War, Spring, Light

“Remember that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad, or sits idle, one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has really spent, rather thrown away, five shillings, besides.
“Remember, that credit is money. If a man lets his money lie in my hands after it is due, he gives me interest, or so much as I can make of it during that time. This amounts to a considerable sum where a man has good and large credit, and makes good use of it.
“Remember, that money is of the prolific, generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six, turned again it is seven and three pence, and so on, till it becomes a hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds.”
“Remember this saying, The good paymaster is lord of another man’s purse. He that is known to pay punctually and exactly to the time he promises, may at any time, and on any occasion, raise all the money his friends can spare. This is sometimes of great use. After industry and frugality, nothing contributes more to the raising of a young man in the world than punctuality and justice in all his dealings; therefore never keep borrowed money an hour beyond the time you promised, lest a disappointment shut up your friend’s purse for ever.
“The most trifling actions that affect a man’s credit are to be regarded. The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or eight at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer; but if he sees you at a billiard table, or hears your voice at a tavern, when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day; demands it, before he can receive it, in a lump. ‘It shows, besides, that you are mindful of what you owe; it makes you appear a careful as well as an honest man, and that still increases your credit.’
“Beware of thinking all your own that you possess, and of living accordingly. It is a mistake that many people who have credit fall into. To prevent this, keep an exact account for some time both of your expenses and your income. If you take the pains at first to mention particulars, it will have this good effect: you will discover how wonderfully small, trifling expenses mount up to large sums, and will discern what might have been, and may for the future be saved, without occasioning any great inconvenience.
“For six pounds a year you may have the use of one hundred pounds, provided you are a man of known prudence and honesty.
“He that spends a groat a day idly, spends idly above six pounds a year, which is the price for the use of one hundred pounds.
“He that wastes idly a groat’s worth of his time per day, one day with another, wastes the privilege of using one hundred pounds each day.
“He that idly loses five shillings’ worth of time, loses five shillings, and might as prudently throw five shillings into the sea.
“He that loses five shillings, not only loses that sum, but all the advantage that might be made by turning it in dealing, which by the time that a young man becomes old, will amount to a considerable sum of money.””

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Money, Pain, People, Lie

“I started selling my portraits. Sizing up my customer, I charged ten or twenty francs a caricature, and it worked like a charm. Within a month my clientele had doubled. Had I gone on like that I'd be a millionaire today. Soon I was looked up to in the town, I was 'somebody'. In the shop-window of the one and only frame-maker who could make out a livelihood in Le Havre, my caricatures were impudently displayed, five or six abreast, in beaded frames or behind glass like very fine works of art, and when I saw troops of bystanders gazing at them in admiration, pointing at them and crying 'Why, that's so-and-so!', I was just bursting with pride.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

after Monet's death
Source: Denis Rouart (1972) Claude Monet, p. 22 : About the first steps in his career

Art, Cry

“Former pop singer Tiffany posed as the centerspread model for this month's issue of Playboy magazine. Tiffany, a devout Baptist, sat down with her young daughter and showed her a Cosmopolitan magazine saying "See honey? Mommy isn't nearly as classy as these ladies."”

Tina Fey (1970) American comedian, writer, producer and actress

citation needed

Daughters

“This war represents the German Revolution, a greater political event than the French Revolution of last century — I don't say a greater, or as great, a social event. What its social consequences may be are in the future. Not a single principle in the management of our foreign affairs, accepted by all statesmen for guidance up to six months ago, any longer exists. There is not a diplomatic tradition which has not been swept away. You have a new world, new influences at work, new and unknown objects and dangers with which to cope. … The balance of power has been entirely destroyed, and the country which suffers most, and feels the effects of this great change most, is England.”

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

Source: Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1871/feb/09/address-to-her-majesty-on-her-most in the House of Commons (9 February 1871) on the Franco-Prussian War which led to German unification.

War, World, Feeling, Suffering

“I am presently at work on a dissertation dealing with the theory of international trade and foreign exchange rates. In dealing with this, studies of the intervention of recent years in the area of trade and exchange rates of different countries is of the greatest importance. I therefore hope to be able to begin a six month study tour to Switzerland, France and England at the end of May this year. After having collected the necessary material I intend — if the economic side can be arranged — during a stay of 6–12 months in England (probably Cambridge) or possibly the United States (in that case probably Harvard University) — to work out the above mentioned dissertation as a specimen for the doctoral degree in philosophy and pursue studies in general. I have not yet any detailed study plan. That should appropriately be set up after the arrival.”

Bertil Ohlin (1899–1979) Swedish economist and politician

Ohlin’s application to the Royal Academy of Sciences, January 30, 1922; Translation by Rolf G. H. Henriksson in "Eureka unter den Linden" in: Bertil Ohlin: A Centennial Celebration, 1899-1999, p. 129.
1920s

Hope, Study, Universe, Country

“And as I said last night, my number one priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president-elect is successful.”

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

2016, Presidential transition of Donald Trump (November 2016)

Success, Night

“It costs a lot to fight this war. We have spent more than a billion dollars a month — over $30 million a day — and we must be prepared for future operations. Afghanistan proved that expensive precision weapons defeat the enemy and spare innocent lives, and we need more of them. We need to replace aging aircraft and make our military more agile, to put our troops anywhere in the world quickly and safely. Our men and women in uniform deserve the best weapons, the best equipment, the best training — and they also deserve another pay raise.”

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

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Women, Men, War, Age

“And when the father who begat it perceived the created image of the eternal gods, that it had motion and life, he rejoiced and was well pleased; and he bethought him to make it yet more nearly like its pattern. Now whereas that is a living being eternally existent, even so he essayed to make this All the like to the best of his power. Now so it was that the nature of the ideal was eternal. But to bestow this attribute altogether upon a created thing was impossible; so he bethought him to make a moving image of eternity, and while he was ordering the universe he made of eternity that abides in unity an eternal image moving according to number, even that which we have named time. For whereas days and nights and months and years were not before the universe was created, he then devised the generation of them along with the fashioning of the universe. Now all these are portions of time, and was and shall be are forms of time that have come to be, although we wrongly ascribe them unawares to the eternal essence. For we say that it was and is and shall be, but in verity is alone belongs to it: and was and shall be it is meet should be applied only to Becoming which moves in time; for these are motions. But that which is ever changeless without motion must not become elder or younger in time, neither must it have become so in past nor be so in the future; nor has it to do with any attributes that Becoming attaches to the moving objects of sense: these have come into being as forms of time, which is the image of eternity and revolves according to number. Moreover we say that the become is the become, and the becoming is the becoming, and that which shall become is that which shall become, and not-being is not-being. In all this we speak incorrectly. But concerning these things the present were perchance not the right season to inquire particularly.”

Plato book Timaeus

38b, as quoted by R. D. Archer-Hind, The Timaeus of Plato (1888)
Timaeus

Life, God, Fashion, Nature

“Since Baby’s birth, she had learned that the first few months of motherhood were about fatigue and leakiness.”

Nalo Hopkinson book Brown Girl in the Ring

Source: Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), Chapter 13 (p. 232)

Birth, Learning, Baby

“Time then has come into being along with the universe, that being generated together, together they may be dissolved, should a dissolution of them ever come to pass; and it was made after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might be as like to it as was possible. For the pattern is existent for all eternity; but the copy has been and is and shall be throughout all time continually. So then this was the plan and intent of God for the generation of time; the sun and the moon and five other stars which have the name of planets have been created for defining and preserving the numbers of time. …and a month is fulfilled when the moon, after completing her own orbit, overtakes the sun; a year, when the sun has completed his own course. But the courses of the others men have not taken into account, save a few out of many… they do not know that time arises from the wanderings of these, which are incalculable in multitude and marvellously intricate. None the less however can we observe that the perfect number of time fulfils the perfect year at the moment when the relative swiftnesses of all the eight revolutions accomplish their course together and reach their starting-point, being measured by the circle of the same and uniformly moving. In this way then and for these causes were created all such of the stars as wander through the heavens and turn about therein, in order that this universe may be most like to the perfect and ideal animal by its assimilation to the eternal being.”

Plato book Timaeus

38d–40a, as quoted by R. D. Archer-Hind, The Timaeus of Plato https://books.google.com/books?id=q2YMAAAAIAAJ (1888) Timaeus

Men, God, Way, Star

“My brave fellows, you have done all I asked you to do, and more than can be reasonably expected; but your country is at stake, your wives, your houses and all that you hold dear. You have worn yourselves out with fatigues and hardships, but we know not how to spare you. If you will consent to stay one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty, and to your country, which you probably can never do under any other circumstances.”

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

Encouraging his men to re-enlist in the army (31 December 1776)
1770s

Housing, Country

“Listen, it is absolutely clear the economy is not doing fine. That's the reason I had a press conference. That's why I spent yesterday, the day before yesterday, this past week, this past month, and this past year talking about how we can make the economy stronger. The economy is not doing fine.”

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

press conference http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/06/08/remarks-president-obama-and-president-aquino-philippines-after-bilateral welcoming President Aquino of the Philippines, , quoted in [2012-06-10, Obama's private sector remarks critiqued, defended on Sunday shows, Morgan, Little, Los Angeles Times, http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/10/news/la-pn-obamas-private-sector-remarks-critiqued-defended-on-sunday-shows-20120610, 2012-06-29] posed question: "Mr. President, Mitt Romney says you're out of touch for saying the private sector is doing fine. What's your response?" 2012

Past

“When I began the following Work, my only object was to extend and explain more fully the Memoir which I read at the public meeting of the Academy of Sciences in the month of April 1787, on the necessity of reforming and completing the Nomenclature of Chemistry. While engaged in this employment, I perceived, better than I had ever done before, the justice of the following maxims of the Abbé de Condillac, in his System of Logic, and some other of his works. "We think only through the medium of words.—Languages are true analytical methods.—Algebra, which is adapted to its purpose in every species of expression, in the most simple, most exact, and best manner possible, is at the same time a language and an analytical method.—The art of reasoning is nothing more than a language well arranged."”

Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794) French chemist

Source: Elements of Chemistry (1790), p.xiii

Justice, Art, Thinking, Science

“About ten months ago a report reached my ears that a certain Fleming had constructed a spyglass by means of which visible objects, though very distant from the eye of the observer, were distinctly seen as if nearby. Of the truly remarkable effect several experiences were related, to which some persons gave credence while others denied them. A few days later a report was confirmed to me in a letter from a noble Frenchman in Paris, Jacques Badovere, which caused me to apply myself wholeheartedly to inquire into means by which I might arrive at the invention of a similar instrument. This I did shortly afterwards, my basis being the theory of refraction. First I prepared a tube of lead, at the ends I fitted two glass lenses, both plane on one side while on the other side one was spherically convex and the other concave. Then placing my eye near the concave lens I perceived objects satisfactorily large and near, for they appeared three times closer and nine times larger than when seen with the naked eye alone. Next I constructed another one, more accurate, which represented objects as enlarged more than sixty times. Finally, sparing neither labor nor expense, I succeeded in constructing for myself so excellent an instrument that objects seen by means of it appeared nearly one thousand times larger and over thirty times closer than when regarded with our natural vision.”

Galileo Galilei book Sidereus Nuncius

Translation by Stillman Drake in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957)
Sidereus Nuncius (Venice, 1609)

Nature, Distant, Appearance, Time

“I look forward to hosting an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan here at the White House later this week, and wish you a blessed month.”

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

Statement by the President on the Occasion of Ramadan (11 August 2010) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/08/11/statement-president-occasion-ramadan 2010

Housing

“As far as I can recall, the initial shiver of inspiration was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage.”

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

As quoted at Penn State University Libraries http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/wlolita.htm. On a Book Entitled Lolita (1956)

Animals, Drawing

“Between the first and second Passover John and Christ baptized together, till the imprisonment of John, which was four months before the second. Then Christ began to preach, and call his disciples; and after he had instructed them a year, lent them to preach in the cities of the Jews: at the same time John hearing of the fame of Christ, sent to him to know who he was. At the third, the chief Priests began to consult about the death of Christ. A little before the fourth, the twelve after they had preached a year in all the cities, returned to Christ; and at the same time Herod beheaded John in prison, after he had been in prison two years and a quarter: and thereupon Christ fled into the desert for fear of Herod. The fourth Christ went not up to Jerusalem for fear of the Jews, who at the Passover before had consulted his death, and because his time was not yet come. Thenceforward therefore till the feast of Tabernacles he walked in Galilee, and that secretly for fear of Herod: and after the feast of Tabernacles he returned no more into Galilee, but sometimes was at Jerusalem, and sometimes retired beyond Jordan, or to the city Ephraim by the wilderness, till the Passover in which he was betrayed, apprehended, and crucified.”

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

Vol. I, Ch. 11: Of the Times of the Birth and Passion of Christ
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)

Death, Fear, Time, Christ

“Now that cricket has been put aside for some few months to come, and cricketers have assumed somewhat of the chrysalis nature (for a time only 'tis true), but at length again will burst forth in all their varied hues, rather than allow this state of torpor to creep over them, and stifle their new supple limbs, why can they not, I say, form a foot-ball club, and form a committee of three or more to draw up a code of laws? If a club of this sort were got up, it would be of vast benefit to any cricket-ground to be trampled upon, and would make the turf quite firm and durable; besides which it would keep those who are inclined to become stout from having their joints encased in useless superabundant flesh.”

Tom Wills (1835–1880) Australian sportsman

From a public letter titled "Winter Practice", published in Bell's Life in Victoria and Sporting Chronicle, 10 July 1858.

Law, Nature, Time, Drawing

“One is too taken up with all that one sees and hears in Paris, however strong one is, and what I do here will at least have the merit of being unlike anyone else, at least I believe so, because it will simply be the expression of what I, and only I have felt. The further I get, the more I regret how little I know, that's what hinders me the most... I don't think I will spend much time in Paris now, a month at the very most, each year.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in a letter to Frédéric Bazille; as quoted in: K.E. Sullivan. Monet: Discovering Art, Brockhampton press, London (2004), p. 31.
1850 - 1870

Thinking, Strong, Time

“The statuette, idol, fetish, or whatever it was, had been captured some months before in the wooded swamps south of New Orleans during a raid on a supposed voodoo meeting; and so singular and hideous were the rites connected with it, that the police could not but realise that they had stumbled on a dark cult totally unknown to them, and infinitely more diabolic than even the blackest of the African voodoo circles. Of its origin, apart from the erratic and unbelievable tales extorted from the captured members, absolutely nothing was to be discovered; hence the anxiety of the police for any antiquarian lore which might help them to place the frightful symbol, and through it track down the cult to its fountain-head.”

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

Fiction, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

Help

“I don’t at all want to resemble some of these young designers who ask hallucinating prices for rags that are so in fashion now, that six months later, they are old-fashioned! I love vintage boutiques, I love to customize my clothes. And then, with my friends, we regularly exchange togs.”

Milla Jovovich (1975) Ukrainian-born american model and actress

Interview 1

Love, Fashion, Clothes

“And in the coming months, let's see where else we can make progress together. Let's make this a year of action. That's what most Americans want, for all of us in this chamber to focus on their lives, their hopes, their aspirations. And what I believe unites the people of this nation, regardless of race or region or party, young or old, rich or poor, is the simple, profound belief in opportunity for all, the notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead in America.”

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

2014, Sixth State of the Union Address (January 2014)

People, Hope

“Now you see that the hope and the desire of returning home and to one's former state is like the moth to the light, and that the man who with constant longing awaits with joy each new spring time, each new summer, each new month and new year — deeming that the things he longs for are ever too late in coming — does not perceive that he is longing for his own destruction. But this desire is the very quintessence, the spirit of the elements, which finding itself imprisoned with the soul is ever longing to return from the human body to its giver. And you must know that this same longing is that quintessence, inseparable from nature, and that man is the image of the world.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

World, Hope, Home, Soul

“There was a team that took that bullet out of the baby, 15 years ago. She's got a scar on her arm, always will, but she will survive. Just like America will survive. Just like black folks will survive. We won't forget where we came from. We won't forget what happened 19 months ago, or 15 years ago, or 300 years ago. We know who the head surgeon is, we're on the case, we're going to pull bullet after bullet out.”

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

Hampton University, June 2007 referring to Jessica Evers http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/26/11408854-unborn-baby-shot-in-los-angeles-riots-im-still-here?lite, born with a bullet in her arm on during the Los Angeles riots 2007

Baby, Forgetting

“I'll play a lot, stake matches. Not like the Russians. They win the championship and then hide for three years. Every few months, anyway twice a year, I'd like to get up a purse and meet a challenger. It's good for the game, keeps up interest in chess, and it's good for the bank account. I want to get some money together. Like take professional football. All these athletes making hundreds of thousands of dollars. Contracts, endorsements. If there's room for all of them, there ought to be room for one of me. I mean, after all, I'm a great goodwill ambassador for the United States!”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Interview by Brad Darrach for Life Magazine, 1971 http://www.bobby-fischer.net/Bobby_Fischer_Articles5.html 1970s

Money, Game, Football

“I was obliged to retract, like a good Catholic, this opinion of mine; and as a punishment my dialogue was prohibited; and after five months being dismissed from Rome (at the time that the city of Florence was infected with plague), the habitation which with generous pity was assigned to me, was that of the dearest friend I had in Siena, Monsignor the Archbishop Piccolomini, whose most agreeable conversation I enjoyed with such quite and satisfaction of mind, that having there resumed my studies, I discovered and demonstrated a great number on the mechanical conclusions on the resistance of solids … after about five months, the pestilence having ceased, the confinement of that house was changed by His Holiness for the freedom of the country so agreeable to me, whence I returned to the villa of Bellosguardo, and afterwards to Arcetri, where I still breathe salubrious air near my dear native-country Florence. Stay sane.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

Source: Letter to Fr. Vincenzo Renieri (c. 1633), p. 251-253

Study, Freedom, Change, Time

“Socrates: Shall we set down astronomy among the objects of study? Glaucon: I think so, to know something about the seasons, the months and the years is of use for military purposes, as well as for agriculture and for navigation. Socrates: It amuses me to see how afraid you are, lest the common herd of people should accuse you of recommending useless studies.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Socrates as quoted by Plato. In Richard Garnett, Léon Vallée, Alois Brandl (eds.), The Universal Anthology: A Collection of the Best Literature (1899), Vol. 4, 111.
Attributed

People, Thinking, Study, Season

“Six months at most after they get here, these young people — and they are mostly young who come — have lost every idea they had, except flirtation and temperature.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Settembrini on the Magic Mountain Society, in Ch. 5
The Magic Mountain (1924)

People, Idea

“In not more than a month's time terror will assume very violent forms, after the example of the great French Revolution; the guillotine… will be ready for our enemies… that remarkable invention of the French Revolution which makes man shorter by a head.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

As quoted in The Cheka : Lenin's Political Police (1981) by George Leggett, p. 54

Time

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

Smedley D. Butler (1881–1940) United States Marine Corps General, 2 time Medal of Honor recipient and activist

War is a racket (1935) Source: Common Sense, Vol. 4, No. 11 (November, 1935), p. 8. Quoted in 'I Might Have Given Al Capone a Few Hints' https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/10/opinion/l-i-might-have-given-al-capone-a-few-hints-023587.html, The New York Times, September 10, 1987.

Way, Boy, Business, Light

“Alexander III of Macedonia was born in 356 B. C., on the sixth day of the month of Lous. He is known as Alexander the Great because he killed more people of more different kinds than any other man of his time. (Footnote) He did this in order to impress Greek culture upon them. Alexander was not strictly a Greek and he was not cultured, but that was his story, and who am I to deny it?”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part II: Ancient Greeks and Worse, Alexander the Great

People, Time

“For a while I gave myself up entirely to the intense enjoyment of picturing machines and devising new forms. It was a mental state of happiness about as complete as I have ever known in life. … When natural inclination develops into a passionate desire, one advances towards his goal in seven−league boots. In less than two months I evolved virtually all the types of motors and modifications of the system which are now identified with my name, and which are used under many other names all over the world. It was, perhaps, providential that the necessities of existence commanded a temporary halt to this consuming activity of the mind.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The last line is about having to take up a job
My Inventions (1919)

Life, World, Nature, Passion