Quotes about need (10000 quotes, page 12)

“Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA — ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State.”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

This quotation has not been confirmed to come from Himmler, its attribution to him on the Internet coming from some point before 2000, as in the Site of the Sentient quotelist http://web.archive.org/web/20000823073240/http://www.siteofthesentient.com/alltags.html
Disputed

“"Don't worry. I can teach you every word that you need to know right now. One of them is fiesta.
"What does that mean?"
"It means 'party' Another important word is juerga.
"What does that word mean? […] Magnus, does that word also mean 'party?'"
"I would apologize, except that I feel no regret at all."”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Magnus Bane and Ragnor Fell in 1791, p. 9.
The Bane Chronicles, What Really Happened in Peru (2013)

Feeling

“A declaration of war on the masses by higher men is needed! … Everything that makes soft and effeminate, that serves the end of the people or the feminine, works in favor of universal suffrage, i. e. the domination of the inferior men. But we should take reprisal and bring this whole affair to light and the bar of judgment.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Will to Power

Sec. 864 (Notebook W II 5. Spring 1888, KGW VIII, 3.157-62, KSA 13.365-70)
The Will to Power (1888)

Men , War , People , Light

“It is true that there are men who, on the approach of severe pain, hear the very opposite call of command, and never appear more proud, more martial, or more happy than when the storm is brewing; indeed, pain itself provides them with their supreme moments! These are the heroic men, the great pain-bringers of mankind: those few and rare ones who need just the same apology as pain generally — and verily, it should not be denied them. They are forces of the greatest importance for preserving and advancing the species, be it only because they are opposed to smug ease, and do not conceal their disgust at this kind of happiness.”

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

Sec. 318
The Gay Science (1882)

Men , Pain , Appearance , Happiness

“In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first. This in no sense, however, implies that great men are not needed. On the contrary, the first object of any good system must be that of developing first-class men; and under systematic management the best man rises to the top more certainly and more rapidly than ever before.”

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) American mechanical engineer and tennis player

Source: Principles of Scientific Management, 1911, p. 7: Introduction.

Men , Sense , Past , Future

“When you got the personality, you don't need the nudity.”

Mae West (1893–1980) American actress and sex symbol

Quoted in "For Women, Monologues They Haven't Heard" by Susan Pomerance, Dramaline Publications (1985)

Personality

“When you find yourself in need of spiritual nourishment, it is in the opportunities to serve others that you will find the abundance you seek.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 73

Graduation

“It would be better, I think, for the man who really seeks the truth not to ask what the poets say; rather, he should first learn the method of finding the scientific premises that I discussed in the second book; then he should train and exercise himself in this method; and when his training is sufficiently advanced, then, as he approaches each particular problem, he should enquire into the premise needed for proving it, which premise he should take from simple sense-perception, which from experience, whether drawn from life or from the arts, which from the truths clearly apprehended by the mind, in order to draw out from them the desired conclusion.”

Galén (129–216) Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher

Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato,: PHP III 8.35.1-11 translation: De Lacy, Phillip (1978- 1984) Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato, Berlin. p. 233; cited in: Christopher Jon Elliott. "Galen, Rome and the Second Sophistic." p. 147-8.

Life , Truth , Books , Art

“And I have to point out that government doesn't tax to get the money it needs, government always needs the money it gets.”

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

Bush-Reagan Debate 1980 on Taxes at League of Women Voters. (24 April 1980) · video footage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edchtf9MS7g
1980s

Money

“"There's a transformation to some degree in the Prophetic Tradition, where there is a spirit that rises above the law, but this transformation really takes place in the New Testament. The Old Testament is prohibition, and the New Testament is, 'here's the good things you do once you're more than merely prohibiting yourself from impulsive sin. There's a positive good to be accomplished, not just a negative to be avoided. You have to look around you within your direct sphere of influence, and you fix the things that announce themselves to be in direct need of repair. And those are often small things. They can start with things as simple as: your room. Put it in order. It's not important that you put your room in order necessarily, what is important is that you learn to distinguish between chaos and order, and that you learn to be able to act in a manner that produces order. In most households there's a hundred things that could be done to make it less hideous and horrible. So practicing that is both a useful form of meditation, but it's also a divine act.""Women are attracted to men's ability to generate, to be productive, and to share. These qualities transcend wealth, which can disappear."”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Women , Men , Law , Learning

“But we have to follow through, even when the politics are hard. Because in the eyes of innocent men and women and children who, through no fault of their own, have had to flee everything that they know, everything that they love, we have to have the empathy to see ourselves. We have to imagine what it would be like for our family, for our children, if the unspeakable happened to us. And we should all understand that, ultimately, our world will be more secure if we are prepared to help those in need and the nations who are carrying the largest burden with respect to accommodating these refugees.”

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

2016, United Nations Address (September 2016)

Love , Women , Men , Children

“No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

Martin Luther, Von Kaufhandlung und Wucher, 1524, (Vol. XV, p. 302, of the Weimar edition of Luther's works).
Misattributed

World , Thinking

“But right now, the key is to make sure that the public is following instructions. For those of you who still need additional information about how to respond, you can go to Ready. gov -- that’s Ready. gov. And that website should provide you with all the information that your family needs in terms of how you can prepare for this storm.”

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

Remarks by the President on Hurricane Sandy http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2012/10/29/president-obama-makes-statement-hurricane-sandy#transcript, quoted in * 2012-10-29
FEMA, W.H. send storm victims to Internet
Steve
Friess
Politico
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/83024.html?hp=l10
2012-11-02
2012

Family

“One of my chief "crimes" then, was to have wanted Iran to move from the oil age into the atomic age before it was too late. Must I blush for that? The peaceful use of nuclear energy did not create problems for radiation and contamination for us since we have vast stretches of desert…
I was accused of having adopted the plans for nuclear power stations among others for reasons of "personal ambition". Was it not obvious that I would be dead before most of these plans had been carried out? Why speak of personal ambition then? It was rather a question of forseeing Iran's needs. My "personal" ambitions are known to all men of good faith - to preserve national unity, to make the Iranian people as happy as possible and to prepare a more peaceful future.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

Page 68
Publications, The Shah's Story (1980), On oil and nuclear energy

Men , People , Age , Peace

“And with the Afghan war ending, this needs to be the year Congress lifts the remaining restrictions on detainee transfers and we close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, because we counter terrorism not just through intelligence and military action but by remaining true to our constitutional ideals and setting an example for the rest of the world.”

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

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

War , World , Intelligence

“Satanism does not encourage orgiastic activity or extramarital affairs for those to whom they do not come naturally. For many, it would be very unnatural and detrimental to be unfaithful to their chosen mates. To others, it would be frustrating to be bound sexually to just one person. Each person must decide for himself what form of sexual activity best suits his individual needs. Self deceitfully forcing yourself to be adulterous or to have sex partners when not married just for the sake of proving others (or worse yet, to yourself) that you are emancipated from sexual guilt is just as wrong, by Satanic standards, as leaving any sexual need unfulfilled because of ingrained feelings of guilt.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Unfaithfulness , Sex , Feeling , Nature

“No amount of money changes what I do between 'action' and 'cut'… Before I got into the industry, I never imagined I'd have anywhere near the money I have now… I don’t need any more. It's not that I don’t want the money, it's just that I would have been really happy sitting on a beach or surfing every morning… I never had money, and I was very happy without it. When I die, my money's not gonna come with me. My movies will live on – for people to judge what I was as a person. I just want to stay curious.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

Interview remarks quoted by Honie Stevens, "Squaring the Ledger" https://archive.is/20121206021747/www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22763328-5006011,00.html, The Daily Telegraph, November 18, 2007.

Money , People , Imagination , Change

“The Satanist believes in complete gratification of his ego. Satanism, in fact, is the only religion which advocates the intensification or encouragement of the ego. Only if a person's own ego is sufficiently fulfilled, can he afford to be kind and complimentary to others, without robbing himself of his self-respect. We generally think of a braggart as a person with a large ego; in reality, his bragging results from a need to satisfy his impoverished ego.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Religion , Thinking , Reality , Personality

“Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. The saying goes you live by the sword you shall die by the sword…It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

This statement by an unknown author has also been wrongly attributed to Julius Caesar, as well as to Shakespeare's play on his assassination and its aftermath, but there are no records of it prior to late 2000. It has been debunked at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/quotes/caesar.htm
Misattributed

Hate , War , Fear

“Any artist should be grateful for a naïve grace which puts him beyond the need to reason elaborately.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Foreword to The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom (1987)
General sources

“You will seek for God in vain till you understand that God can't be seen as a "thing"; he needs a special way of looking — similar to that of little children whose sight is undistorted by prefabricated doctrines and beliefs.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 8

God , Children , Way , Understanding

“Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?”

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

Source: 1930s, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness.

Men , People , World , Way

“I am distressed, almost discouraged, and fatigued to the point of slightly ill... Never have I been so unlucky with the weather. Never three suitable days in succession, so I have to be always making changes [in his paintings] for everything is growing and turning green. And I have dreamed of painting the Creuse [river in the South of France] just as we saw it... In short, by dint of changes I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, and then there is that river that shrinks, swells again, green one day, then yellow, sometimes almost dry, and which tomorrow will be a torrent, after the terrible rain that is falling at the moment. In fact, I am very worried. Write to me; I have a great need of comfort.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

In his letter from Normandy to art-critic and friend Gustave Geffroy, 24 April 1889; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 129
1870 - 1890

Dreams , Nature , Change , Success

“Help? Of course we can help,' Malcolm said, turning around to face them. 'You need to get a message through? There's always carrier kittens.'
'You mean pigeons,' said Bat. 'Carrier pigeons.'
Malcolm shook his head. 'Carrier kittens. They're so cute, no one can deny them. Fix your mouse problem, too.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Bat Velasquez and Malcolm Fade, pg. 403
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

Problem , Help

“Our girls have to be treated the same. We can’t let old traditions stand in the way. The march of history shows that we have the capacity to broaden our moral imaginations. We come to see that some traditions are good for us, they keep us grounded, but that, in our modern world, other traditions set us back. When African girls are subjected to the mutilation of their bodies, or forced into marriage at the ages of 9 or 10 or 11 -- that sets us back. That's not a good tradition. It needs to end. […]”

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

2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)

Marriage , Age , World , Way

“Virtue is not a mushroom, that springeth up of itself in one night when we are asleep, or regard it not; but a delicate plant, that groweth slowly and tenderly, needing much pains to cultivate it, much care to guard it, much time to mature it, in our untoward soil, in this world's unkindly weather.”

Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician

As quoted in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 612

Pain , World , Time , Weather

“Human beings have a physical need to tell themselves when at work: “Let’s have done with it now,” and it’s having constantly to go on thinking in the face of this need when philosophizing that makes this work so strenuous.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 86e

Thinking

“The question we writers are asked most often, the favorite question, is: Why do you write? I write because I have an innate need to write. I write because I can’t do normal work as other people do. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can partake of real life only by changing it. I write because I want others, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all life’s beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but—as in a dream—can’t quite get to. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy.”

Orhan Pamuk (1952) Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient

" My Father's Suitcase", Nobel Prize for Literature lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2006/pamuk-lecture_en.html (December 7, 2006).

Love , Life , People , Books

“We'll buy a lot of clothes when we don't really need 'em/Things we buy to cover up what's inside/Cause they make us hate our-self and love they wealth.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

All Falls Down
Lyrics, The College Dropout (2004)

Love , Hate , Clothes , Wealth

“The general of the sea has need of only one science, that of navigation. The one on land has need of all, or of a talent which is the equivalent of all, that will enable him to profit by all experience, and all knowledge. A general of the sea has nothing to divine. He knows where his enemy is, he knows his strength. A general on land never knows anything with certainty, never sees his enemy well, and never knows positively where he is.”

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

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Knowledge , Science , Sea

“Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe… Anthroposophists are those who experience, as an essential need of life, certain questions on the nature of the human being and the universe, just as one experiences hunger and thirst.”

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) Austrian esotericist

Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts (1924)

Life , Hunger , Question , Nature

“The document they produced was eventually signed, but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggles, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience, and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.”

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

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

Women , Men , War , People

“And know that a person needs to traverse a very, very narrow bridge, but the fundamental and most important principle is to have no hesitation or fear at all.”

Nachman of Breslov (1772–1810) Ukrainian rabbi

This saying has been set to music in Hebrew as the song Kol Ha-Olam Kulo
Attributed

Fear , Personality

“It is too early to assess the policies of the new German government. I can only say that the crisis has shown that the monetary union is incomplete and that the weaknesses need to be remedied. Germany helps the euro best by further strengthening its competitiveness and promoting growth.”

Mario Draghi (1947) Italian banker and economist

spiegel.de http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/spiegel-interview-with-ecb-president-mario-draghi-a-941489.html.

Help

“There is a spirit and a need and a man at the beginning of every great human advance. Every one of these must be right for that particular moment of history, or nothing happens.”

Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) American author, activist, and civil rights leader. Wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Source: My Life with Martin Luther King Jr., Revised Edition (1969/1993), Ch. 6

History

“Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say in advance, there will be no blood shed unless it be forced' upon the Government. The Government will not use force unless force is used against it.”

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

Source: 1860s, Speech in Independence Hall (1861)

War

“We need to figure out how to have the things we love, and not destroy the world.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

[Driving With Elon Musk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSNXhHTLLIk, 26 March 2012]

Love , World

“I idealize my directors. It's true. I need to. I need to. I don't know if idealizing is a bad thing or good thing. But I just want to get up in the morning and work to get a glimpse of thing of his eyes searching things inside of me. For some I want to go to hell and to heaven. It hasn't happened with everybody. There are certain people I idealize. Others are very good, and I want to please them, too, but in a different sense of the word.”

Nastassja Kinski (1961) German actress

As quoted in Denise Worrell (1989), Icons: Intimate Portraits.

People , Search , Hell , Sense

“She’s a nice girl – I just feel very honoured that she wanted to sing my song. I used to scream for her in Times Square and now I work for her. When I was 13 she was the most provocative performer of my time. I love her so much! Britney certainly doesn’t need any freakin’ tips from me! Britney Spears is the queen of pop. I was learning from her.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Lady Gaga on Britney Spears http://www.nowmagazine.co.uk/celebrity-news/300123/lady-gaga-i-don-t-have-time-for-dating/1

Love , Feeling , Girl , Learning

“Art cannot be separated from life. It is the expression of the greatest need of which life is capable, and we value art not because of the skilled product, but because of its revelation of a life's experience.”

Robert Henri (1865–1929) American painter

Source: * The New York Exhibition of Independent Artists ** The Craftsman ** 1910 ** https://books.google.com/books?id=Af84fBmzmVYC&pg=PA423&lpg=PA423&dq=Art+cannot+be+separated+from+life.#v=onepage&q=Art%20cannot%20be%20separated%20from%20life.&f=false.

Life , Art

“The idea of a God was not a lie but a device of the unconscious which needed to be decoded by psychology. A personal god was nothing more than an exalted father-figure: desire for such a deity sprang from infantile yearnings for a powerful, protective father, for justice and fairness and for life to go on forever. God is simply a projection of these desires, feared and worshiped by human beings out of an abiding sense of helplessness. Religion belonged to the infancy of the human race; it had been a necessary stage in the transition from childhood to maturity. It had promoted ethical values which were essential to society. Now that humanity had come of age, however, it should be left behind.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Summary of Freud's view found in Karen Armstrong's 'A History of God' (1993), p. 409
Misattributed

Life , God , Lie , Age

“Our country is not flourishing. The enormous creative and spiritual potential of our nations is not being used sensibly. Entire branches of industry are producing goods that are of no interest to anyone, while we are lacking the things we need. A state which calls itself a workers' state humiliates and exploits workers. Our obsolete economy is wasting the little energy we have available.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

New Year's Address to the Nation (1990)

Country

“It logically follows that, in today's multicultural world, the truly reliable path to coexistence, to peaceful coexistence and creative cooperation, must start from what is at the root of all cultures and what lies infinitely deeper in human hearts and minds than political opinion, convictions, antipathies, or sympathies — it must be rooted in self-transcendence:
Transcendence as a hand reached out to those close to us, to foreigners, to the human community, to all living creatures, to nature, to the universe.
Transcendence as a deeply and joyously experienced need to be in harmony even with what we ourselves are not, what we do not understand, what seems distant from us in time and space, but with which we are nevertheless mysteriously linked because, together with us, all this constitutes a single world.
Transcendence as the only real alternative to extinction.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World (1994)

World , Peace , Communication , Understanding

“That which transcends country, which is greater than country, can only reveal itself through one’s country. God has manifested his one eternal nature in just such a variety of forms… I can assure you that through the open sky of India you will be able to see the sun therefore there is no need to cross the ocean and sit at the window of a Christian church. … “I have nothing more to say,” answered Gora, “only this much I would add. You must understand that the Hindu religion takes in its lap, like a mother, people of different ideas and opinions, in other words, the Hindu religion looks upon man as man and does not count him as belonging to a particular party. It honours not only the wise but the foolish also and it shows respect not merely to one form of wisdom but to wisdom in all its aspects. Christians do not want to acknowledge diversity; they say that on one side is Christian religion and on the other eternal destruction, and between these two there is no middle path. And because we have studied under these Christians we have become ashamed of the variety that is there in Hinduism. We fail to see that through this diversity Hinduism is coming to realise the oneness of all. Unless we can free ourselves from this whirlpool of Christian teaching we shall not become fit for the glorious truths of Hindu religion.””

Rabindranath Tagore book Gora

Rabindranath Tagore, Gora, translated into English, Calcutta, 1961. Quoted from Goel, S. R. (2016). History of Hindu-Christian encounters, AD 304 to 1996. Chapter 13 ISBN 9788185990354 https://web.archive.org/web/20120501043412/http://voiceofdharma.org/books/hhce/

Wisdom , God , People , Truth

“If I should do so now it occurs that he places himself somewhat upon the ground of the parable of the lost sheep which went astray upon the mountains, and when the owner of the hundred sheep found the one that was lost and threw it upon his shoulders, and came home rejoicing, it was said that there was more rejoicing over the one sheep that was lost and had been found than over the ninety and nine in the fold. The application is made by the Saviour in this parable thus: Verily I say unto you, there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.”

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

Repentance before forgiveness is a provision of the Christian system, and on that condition alone will the Republicans grant his forgiveness.
Regarding his debate with Judge S. A. Douglas, in his Springfield address (17 July 1858), published in The Life, Speeches, and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln: Together with a Sketch of the Life of Hannibal Hamlin: Republican candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President of the United States (1860), p. 50
Lincoln was alluding to the words of Jesus in Luke 15:7 http://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Luke%2015%3A7
1850s

Home , Mountain , Forgiveness , Personality

“In countries held together by borders drawn by colonial powers, with ethnic enclaves and tribal divisions, politics and elections can sometimes appear to be a zero-sum game. And so, given the difficulty in forging true democracy in the face of these pressures, it’s no surprise that some argue the future favors the strongman, a top-down model, rather than strong, democratic institutions. […] I believe the road of true democracy remains the better path. I believe that in the 21st century, economies can only grow to a certain point until they need to open up -- because entrepreneurs need to access information in order to invent; young people need a global education in order to thrive; independent media needs to check the abuses of power. Without this evolution, ultimately expectations of people will not be met; suppression and stagnation will set in. And history shows that strongmen are then left with two paths -- permanent crackdown, which sparks strife at home, or scapegoating enemies abroad, which can lead to war.”

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

2016, United Nations Address (September 2016)

War , People , Education , Democracy

“Even as a child, I had that sort of defense mechanism. If something was awkward, I would try to lighten it up by making people laugh. But like Chandler, I've grown up a little bit in the last eight years and become a lot more comfortable with my serious side. I feel the need to fill the silences a lot less with jokes.”

Matthew Perry (actor) (1969) American actor

Frazier Moore, Associated Press (August 22, 2002) "Perry pondering life after 'Friends'", Deseret Morning News, Deseret News Publishing Co., p. C04.

People , Feeling , Silence

“Nobody can possibly be so hungry that they need to take a life in order to feel satisfied – they don't after all, take a human life, so why take the life of an animal? Both are conscious beings with the same determination to survive. It is habit, and laziness and nothing else.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

Autobiography

Life , Feeling , Animals

“What does not exist must be something, or it would be meaningless to deny its existence; and hence we need the concept of being, as that which belongs even to the non-existent.”

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

Principles of Mathematics (1903), p. 450
1900s

“If you seek reality you must set yourself free of all backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking and feeling. Even the idea of being man or woman, or even human should be discarded. The ocean of life contains all, not only humans. So, first of all abandon all self-identification, stop thinking of yourself as such-and-such or so-and-so, this or that. Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual, abandon every desire, gross or subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind. You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj book I Am That

Self-identification
Source: "I Am That." P.316

Life , Feeling , Idea , Thinking

“India is industrially more developed than many less fortunate countries and is reckoned as the seventh or eighth among the world's industrial nations. But this arithmetical distinction cannot conceal the poverty of the great majority of our people. To remove this poverty by greater production, more equitable distribution, better education and better health, is the paramount need and the most pressing task before us and we are determined to accomplish this task. We realize that self-help is the first condition of success for a nation, no less than for an individual. We are conscious that ours must be the primary effort and we shall seek succour from none to escape from any part of our own responsibility. But though our economic potential is great, its conversion into finished wealth will need much mechanical and technological aid. We shall, therefore, gladly welcome such aid and co-operation on terms that are of mutual benefit. We believe that this may well help in the solution of the larger problems that confront the world. But we do not seek any material advantage in exchange for any part of our hard-won freedom.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Speech to the US Congress (13 October 1949)

People , Health , World , Education

“I am confident that the whole Church, which is in such need of mercy for we are sinners, will be able to find in this Jubilee the joy of rediscovering and rendering fruitful God’s mercy, with which we are all called to give comfort to every man and every woman of our time. Do not forget that God forgives all, and God forgives always. Let us never tire of asking forgiveness. Let us henceforth entrust this Year to the Mother of Mercy, that she turn her gaze upon us and watch over our journey: our penitential journey, our year-long journey with an open heart, to receive the indulgence of God, to receive the mercy of God.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

2010s, 2015, Announcement of the Jubilee of Mercy

God , Confidence , Forgiveness , Time

“faith need not be kept with heretics”
Nulla fides servanda cum Hereticis, nisi satis validi sunt ad se defendendos

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

Journal entry (25 January 1676), quoted in John Lough (ed.), Locke's Travels in France 1675-1679 (Cambridge University Press, 1953), p. 20.

Faith

“It is just so with personal liberty. The unlimited freedom which the individual property-owner has enjoyed has been of use to this country in many ways, and we can continue our prosperous economic career only by retaining an economic organization which will offer to the men of the stamp of the great captains of industry the opportunity and inducement to earn distinction. Nevertheless, we as Americans must now face the fact that this great freedom which the individual property-owner has enjoyed in the past has produced evils which were’ inevitable from its unrestrained exercise. It is this very freedom - this absence of State ‘and National restraint - that has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. Any feeling of special hatred toward these men is as absurd as any feeling of special regard. Some of them have gained their power by cheating and swindling, just as some very small business men cheat and swindle; but, as a whole, big men are no better and no worse than their small competitors, from a moral standpoint. Where they do wrong it is even more important to punish them than to punish as small man who does wrong, because their position makes it especially wicked for them to yield to temptation; but the prime need is to change the conditions which enable them to accumulate a power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise, and to make this change not only, without vindictiveness, without doing injustice to individuals, but also in a cautious and temperate spirit, testing our theories by actual practice, so that our legislation may represent the minimum of restrictions upon the individual initiative of the exceptional man which is compatible with obtaining the maximum of welfare for the average man.”

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

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

Men , Way , Feeling , Exercises

“Saint Francis of Assisi… felt called to care for all that exists. His disciple Saint Bonaventure tells us that, “from a reflection on the primary source of all things, filled with even more abundant piety, he would call creatures, no matter how small, by the name of ‘brother’ or ‘sister’”. Such a conviction cannot be written off as naive romanticism, for it affects the choices which determine our behaviour. If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously. The poverty and austerity of Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical: a refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

§ 11
2010s, 2015, Laudato si' : Care for Our Common Home

World , Beauty , Feeling , Nature

“Don't tell me," he said. "You've got a drawing emergency. You need a nude model. Well, I'm not in the mood. You could ask Hodge.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Jace to Clary, pg. 324
The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Mood , Drawing

“If fathers who fear fathering and run away from it could only see how little fathering is enough. Mostly, the father just needs to be there.”

Frank Pittman (1935–2012) American psychiatrist

Source: Man Enough (1993), Ch. 6.

Fear

“We, the men of to-day and of the future, need many qualities if we are to do our work well. We need, first of all and most important of all, the qualities which stand at the base of individual, of family life, the fundamental and essential qualities—the homely, every-day, all-important virtues. If the average man will not work, if he has not in him the will and the power to be a good husband and father; if the average woman is not a good housewife, a good mother of many healthy children, then the state will topple, will go down, no matter what may be its brilliance of artistic development or material achievement. But these homely qualities are not enough. There must, in addition, be that power of organization, that power of working in common for a common end […]. Moreover, the things of the spirit are even more important than the things of the body. We can well do without the hard intolerance and arid intellectual barrenness of what was worst in the theological systems of the past, but there has never been greater need of a high and fine religious spirit than at the present time. So, while we can laugh good-humoredly at some of the pretensions of modern philosophy in its various branches, it would be worse than folly on our part to ignore our need of intellectual leadership. […] our debt to scientific men is incalculable, and our civilization of to-day would have reft from it all that which most highly distinguishes it if the work of the great masters of science during the past four centuries were now undone or forgotten. Never has philanthropy, humanitarianism, seen such development as now; and though we must all beware of the folly, and the viciousness no worse than folly, which marks the believer in the perfectibility of man when his heart runs away with his head, or when vanity usurps the place of conscience, yet we must remember also that it is only by working along the lines laid down by the philanthropists, by the lovers of mankind, that we can be sure of lifting our civilization to a higher and more permanent plane of well-being than was ever attained by any preceding civilization.”

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

1910s, The World Movement (1910)

Life , Men , Children , Family

“The aim of my work: The study of nature, the love of nature's art, and the need to express what one feels in one's heart.”

Émile Gallé (1846–1904) French glass artist and cabinetmaker

Ecrits pour l'art, ed. Henrietta Galle Paris 1908/Marseille (1980).

Love , Art , Feeling , Nature

“There is no wasted effort. There is no wasted effort. It will all add to the path. It will all add to the journey. Somehow. You just can't even imagine how it will. But you just need to do things fully to the best of your ability. And you go towards the thing that you love. What you love to do.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Interview at Chatelaine.com (February 2011) http://www.chatelaine.com/en/videos/26327--interview-with-jennifer-beals/.

Love , Imagination , Effort

“It was that pathetic feeling of not having a hot girlfriend on my arm while some other boys in the theatre did. What I truly wanted… what I truly NEEDED, was a girlfriend. I needed a girl’s love. I needed to feel worthy as a male. For so long I have felt worthless, and it’s all girls’ fault. No girl wanted to be my girlfriend.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Inceldom

Love , Feeling , Girl , Boy

“This is a superfight. I look up at that poster and I see myself tucked in the back there. I see a guy who has.. his last gate was $1.7 million, he fought on free tv. He's never brought a dime to the company, he's never made a dime, yet he is sitting there on the front of my poster. I think that's a department that needs to be looked at, somebody is sleeping on the job.”

Conor McGregor (1988) Irish mixed martial artist and boxer

"UFC 197 press conference" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75xAdA3uVeY (January 2016), Ultimate Fighting Championship, Zuffa, LLC
2010s, 2016

Guy , Thinking , Sleep

“When I made my first film, I think the thing was probably helped me the most was that it was such an unusual thing to do in the early 50s for someone who actually go and make a film. People thought it was impossible. It really is terribly easy. All anybody needs is a camera, a tape recorder, and some imagination.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

Interviewed by Charles Kohler, East Village Eye (1968)

People , Imagination , Thinking , Help

“I remember thinking how often we look, but never see … we listen, but never hear … we exist, but never feel. We take our relationships for granted. A house is only a place. It has no life of its own. It needs human voices, activity and laughter to come alive.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

A Marriage Made In Heaven; or, Too Tired For an Affair (1993)

Life , Feeling , Thinking , Laughter

“The `Why?' cannot, and need not, be put into words. Those for whom a child's mind is a sealed book, and who see no divinity in a child's smile, would read such words in vain: while for any one that has ever loved one true child, no words are needed. For he will have known the awe that falls on one in the presence of a spirit fresh from GOD's hands, on whom no shadow of sin, and but the outermost fringe of the shadow of sorrow, has yet fallen: he will have felt the bitter contrast between the haunting selfishness that spoils his best deeds and the life that is but an overflowing love--for I think a child's first attitude to the world is a simple love for all living things: and he will have learned that the best work a man can do is when he works for love's sake only, with no thought of name, or gain, or earthly reward. No deed of ours, I suppose, on this side the grave, is really unselfish: yet if one can put forth all one's powers in a task where nothing of reward is hoped for but a little child's whispered thanks, and the airy touch of a little child's pure lips, one seems to come somewhere near to this.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Alice's Adventures Under Ground (1886), Introduction, p. v

Love , Life , God , Books

“Language comes into being, like consciousness, from the basic need, from the scantiest intercourse with other human.”

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

Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846), Vol. III, 30.

“Now the trickiest catch in the negro problem is the fact that it is really twofold. The black is vastly inferior. There can be no question of this among contemporary and unsentimental biologists—eminent Europeans for whom the prejudice-problem does not exist. But, it is also a fact that there would be a very grave and very legitimate problem even if the negro were the white man's equal. For the simple fact is, that two widely dissimilar races, whether equal or not, cannot peaceably coexist in the same territory until they are either uniformly mongrelised or cast in folkways of permanent and traditional personal aloofness. No normal being feels at ease amidst a population having vast elements radically different from himself in physical aspect and emotional responses. A normal Yankee feels like a fish out of water in a crowd of cultivated Japanese, even though they may be his mental and aesthetic superiors; and the normal Jap feels the same way in a crowd of Yankees. This, of course, implies permanent association. We can all visit exotic scenes and like it—and when we are young and unsophisticated we usually think we might continue to like it as a regular thing. But as years pass, the need of old things and usual influences—home faces and home voices—grows stronger and stronger; and we come to see that mongrelism won't work. We require the environing influence of a set of ways and physical types like our own, and will sacrifice anything to get them. Nothing means anything, in the end, except with reference to that continuous immediate fabric of appearances and experiences of which one was originally part; and if we find ourselves ingulphed by alien and clashing influences, we instinctively fight against them in pursuit of the dominant freeman's average quota of legitimate contentment.... All that any living man normally wants—and all that any man worth calling such will stand for—is as stable and pure a perpetuation as possible of the set of forms and appearances to which his value-perceptions are, from the circumstances of moulding, instinctively attuned. That is all there is to life—the preservation of a framework which will render the experience of the individual apparently relevant and significant, and therefore reasonably satisfying. Here we have the normal phenomenon of race-prejudice in a nutshell—the legitimate fight of every virile personality to live in a world where life shall seem to mean something.... Just how the black and his tan penumbra can ultimately be adjusted to the American fabric, yet remains to be seen. It is possible that the economic dictatorship of the future can work out a diplomatic plan of separate allocation whereby the blacks may follow a self-contained life of their own, avoiding the keenest hardships of inferiority through a reduced number of points of contact with the whites... No one wishes them any intrinsic harm, and all would rejoice if a way were found to ameliorate such difficulties as they have without imperilling the structure of the dominant fabric. It is a fact, however, that sentimentalists exaggerate the woes of the average negro. Millions of them would be perfectly content with servile status if good physical treatment and amusement could be assured them, and they may yet form a well-managed agricultural peasantry. The real problem is the quadroon and octoroon—and still lighter shades. Theirs is a sorry tragedy, but they will have to find a special place. What we can do is to discourage the increase of their numbers by placing the highest possible penalties on miscegenation, and arousing as much public sentiment as possible against lax customs and attitudes—especially in the inland South—at present favouring the melancholy and disgusting phenomenon. All told, I think the modern American is pretty well on his guard, at last, against racial and cultural mongrelism. There will be much deterioration, but the Nordic has a fighting chance of coming out on top in the end.”

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

Letter to James F. Morton (January 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 253
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.

Life , World , Penalty , Way

“Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,’ I cried.
‘My friends are gone, but that’s a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

Crazy Jane Talks With The Bishop http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1471/, st. 2
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)

Truth

“One might ask why Senhor José needs a hundred-yard-long piece of string if the length of the Central Registry, despite successive extensions, is no more than eighty. That is the question of a person who imagines that one can do everything in life simply by following a straight line, that it is always possible to proceed from one place to another by the shortest route, perhaps some people in the outside world believe that they have done so, but here, where the living and the dead share the same space, sometimes, in order to find one of them, you have to make a lot of twists and turns, you have to skirt round mountains of bundles, columns of files, piles of cards, thickets of ancient remains, you have to walk down dark gulleys, between walls of grubby paper which, up above, actually touch, yards and yards of string will have to be unravelled, left behind, like a sinuous, subtle trail traced in the dust, there is no other way of knowing where you have to go next, there is no other way of finding your way back.”

José Saramago book All the Names

Source: All the Names (1997), pp. 140–141

Life , People , World , Way

“We also know that religion, as the Marxists have always insisted, has, too often, like an opiate, tended to put people to sleep to the reality and the need for the present struggle for peace and justice.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

"Month of the Dead," Catholic Worker (November 1959)

People , Peace , Religion , Justice

“Today we need a special kind of courage. Not the kind needed in battle, but a kind which makes us stand up for everything that we know is right, everything that is true and honest. We need the kind of courage that can withstand the subtle corruption of the cynics, so that we can show the world that we are not afraid of the future.”

Isabel II do Reino Unido (1926–2022) queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations

1957 Christmas Broadcast; quoted on royal website http://www.royal.gov.uk/imagesandbroadcasts/thequeenschristmasbroadcasts/christmasbroadcasts/christmasbroadcast1957.aspx (25 December 1957)

World , Courage , Future

“I promise this, that if I am supported by our most invincible sovereigns with a little of their help, as much gold can be supplied as they will need, indeed as much of spices, of cotton, of mastic gum (which is only found in Chios), also as much of aloes wood, and as many slaves for the navy, as their Majesties will wish to demand.”

Cristoforo Colombo (1451–1506) Explorer, navigator, and colonizer

"Concerning the Islands Recently Discovered in the Indian Sea" (14 March 1493)

Support , Help

“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

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

The Criticism of the Gotha Program (1875)
Variant: Variant translation: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

“To go somewhere and say: 'I have this really terrific movie, but I need some... money”

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

Good luck!
Source: [Jobson, Richard, July 14, 2000, Morgan Freeman, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/jul/14/morganfreeman, The Guardian, London, December 4, 2017]

Money , Happiness

“Don't talk to me about the world needing cheerful stuff! What the person out of Belsen — physical or psychological — wants is nobody saying the birdies still go tweet-tweet, but the full knowledge that somebody else has been there and knows the worst, just what it is like.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Letter to Aurelia Plath (August 21, 1962)
Letters Home: Correspondence 1950–1963 (1976)

World , Knowledge , Personality

“Everyone's heard of Erwin Schrodinger's famous thought experiment. You put a cat in a box with a bottle of poison, which many people would suggest is about as far as you need to go.”

Terry Pratchett book The Unadulterated Cat

The Unadulterated Cat (1989)

People , Cats , Box

“Trump won the nomination because he was anti-left, not because of any political viewpoints, he was slapping people on the left and people on the right went, ‘Yeah, those people need to be slapped!”

Ben Shapiro (1984) American journalist and attorney

As quoted in Ben Shapiro, a Provocative ‘Gladiator,’ Battles to Win Young Conservatives https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/us/ben-shapiro-conservative.html (November 23, 2017) by Sabrina Tavernise, '.

People

“The great majority of men and women, in ordinary times, pass through life without ever contemplating or criticising, as a whole, either their own conditions or those of the world at large. They find themselves born into a certain place in society, and they accept what each day brings forth, without any effort of thought beyond what the immediate present requires. Almost as instinctively as the beasts of the field, they seek the satisfaction of the needs of the moment, without much forethought, and without considering that by sufficient effort the whole conditions of their lives could be changed.”

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

Introduction, p. 4
1910s, Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918)

Life , Women , Men , World

“I need say hardly anything in the Unintelligence of the Negroes, They show capacities of Providence and they are most likely always having low self-esteem But needless to say my Virtue, Power, And Strength have helped them to become strong most upcoming individuals in the nation they show pride and interest in education and learning new things And Just know What lies with you once lies with you more until change is done.”

Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) American physician, educator, author

Education , Strong , Learning , Change

“One of the great things about America is that individual citizens and groups of citizens can petition their government, can protest, can speak truth to power. And that is sometimes messy and controversial. But because of that ability to protest and engage in free speech, America, over time, has gotten better. We've all benefited from that.

The abolition movement was contentious. The effort for women to get the right to vote was contentious and messy. There were times when activists might have engaged in rhetoric that was overheated and occasionally counterproductive. But the point was to raise issues so that we, as a society, could grapple with it. The same was true with the Civil Rights Movement, the union movement, the environmental movement, the anti-war movement during Vietnam. And I think what you're seeing now is part of that longstanding tradition.

What I would say is this -- that whenever those of us who are concerned about fairness in the criminal justice system attack police officers, you are doing a disservice to the cause. First of all, any violence directed at police officers is a reprehensible crime and needs to be prosecuted. But even rhetorically, if we paint police in broad brush, without recognizing that the vast majority of police officers are doing a really good job and are trying to protect people and do so fairly and without racial bias, if our rhetoric does not recognize that, then we're going to lose allies in the reform cause.

Now, in a movement like Black Lives Matter, there's always going to be some folks who say things that are stupid, or imprudent, or overgeneralized, or harsh. And I don't think that you can hold well-meaning activists who are doing the right thing and peacefully protesting responsible for everything that is uttered at a protest site.”

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

Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Rajoy of Spain After Bilateral Meeting https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/07/10/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-rajoy-spain-after-bilateral (10 July 2016)
2016

Women , War , People , Truth

“A work is never completed except by some accident such as weariness, satisfaction, the need to deliver, or death: for, in relation to who or what is making it, it can only be one stage in a series of inner transformations.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

"Recollection", Collected Works, vol. 1 (1972), as translated by David Paul
Variant translations:
A poem is never finished; it's always an accident that puts a stop to it — i.e. gives it to the public.
As attributed in Susan Ratcliffe, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (2011), p. 385.
A poem is never finished; it is only abandoned.
Widely quoted, this is a paraphrase of Valéry by W. H. Auden in 1965. See W. H. Auden: Collected Poems (2007), ed. Edward Mendelson, "Author's Forewords", p. xxx.
An artist never finishes a work, he merely abandons it.
A paraphrase by Aaron Copland in the essay "Creativity in America," published in Copland on Music (1944), p. 53
In the eyes of those lovers of perfection, a work is never finished — a word that for them has no sense — but abandoned; and this abandonment, whether to the flames or to the public (and which is the result of weariness or an obligation to deliver) is a kind of an accident to them, like the breaking off of a reflection, which fatigue, irritation, or something similar has made worthless.

Death

“Only those who have little need of the truth, and no respect for it — the poets and novelists — can be trusted to do it, for this is one of the cases where the truth does no exist. Nothing exists. The whole thing is a miasma — a mirage.”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando: A Biography (1928), Ch. 4

Truth

“More attention to the History of Science is needed, as much by scientists as by historians, and especially by biologists, and this should mean a deliberate attempt to understand the thoughts of the great masters of the past, to see in what circumstances or intellectual milieu their ideas were formed, where they took the wrong turning or stopped short on the right track.”

Ronald Fisher (1890–1962) English statistician, evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and eugenicist

Natural selection from the genetical standpoint. Australian Journal of Science 22, 16-17, 1959.
1950s

History , Idea , Understanding , Science

“Above all, when your voices are heard in government, it's far more likely that your basic needs will be met. And that’s why reform must reach the daily lives of those who are hungry and those who are ill, and those who live without electricity or water.”

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

2012, Yangon University Speech (November 2012)

Water

“I don’t know how else to teach you what you need to learn except by showing you your mistakes over and over again until you stop making them.”

Christopher Paolini book Inheritance

Arya
Inheritance (2011)

Learning

“I came across this Asian guy who was talking to a white girl. The sight of that filled me with rage. I always felt as if white girls thought less of me because I was half-Asian, but then I see this white girl at the party talking to a full-blooded Asian. I never had that kind of attention from a white girl! And white girls are the only girls I’m attracted to, especially the blondes. How could an ugly Asian attract the attention of a white girl, while a beautiful Eurasian like myself never had any attention from them? I thought with rage. I glared at them for a bit, and then decided I had been insulted enough. I angrily walked toward them and bumped the Asian guy aside, trying to act cocky and arrogant to both the boy and the girl. My drunken state got the better of me, and I almost fell over to the floor after a few minutes of this. They said something along the lines that I was very drunk and that I needed to get some water, so I angrily left them and went out to the front yard, where the main partying happened. Rage fumed inside me as I realized that I just walked away from that confrontation, so I rushed back into the house and spitefully insulted the Asian before walking outside again.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Building to Violence

Beauty , Guy , Girl , Boy

“Our modern worship of empty ideals is ludicrous. What does the condition of the rabble matter? All we need do is to keep it as quiet as we can. What is more important, is to perpetuate those things of beauty which are of real value because involving actual sense-impressions rather than vapid theories. "Equality" is a joke — but a great abbey or cathedral, covered with moss, is a poignant reality. If it is for us to safeguard and preserve the conditions which produce great abbeys, and palaces, and picturesque walled town, and vivid sky-lines of steeples and domes, and luxurious tapestries, and fascinating books, paintings and statuary, and colossal organs and noble music, and dramatic deeds on embattled fields — these are all there is of life: take them away and we have nothing which a man of taste or spirit would care to live for. Take them away and our poets have nothing to sing — our dreamers have nothing to dream about. The blood of a million men is well shed in producing one glorious legend which thrills posterity and it is not at all important why it was shed.”

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

Letter to James F. Morton (10 February 1923), published in Selected Letters Vol. I (1965), p. 208
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.

Life , Men , Books , Beauty

“Yes, in our world, old thinking can be a stubborn thing. That's one of the reasons why we need term limits -- old people think old ways. […] The old ways can be stubborn. But I believe the human heart is stronger. I believe hearts can change. I believe minds can open. That’s how change happens. That’s how societies move forward. It's not always a straight line -- step by halting step -- sometimes you go forward, you move back a little bit. But I believe we are marching, we are pointing towards ideals of justice and equality.”

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

2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)

People , World , Justice , Way

“What is a Dixiecrat? A Democrat. A Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat in disguise. […] The Dixiecrats in Washington, D. C., control the key committees that run the government. The only reason the Dixiecrats control these committees is because they have seniority. The only reason they have seniority is because they come from states where Negroes can’t vote. This is not even a government that’s based on democracy. It is not a government that is made up of representatives of the people. Half of the people in the South can’t even vote. Eastland is not even supposed to be in Washington. Half of the senators and congressmen who occupy these key positions in Washington, D. C., are there illegally, are there unconstitutionally.
These senators and congressmen actually violate the constitutional amendments that guarantee the people of that particular state or county the right to vote. And the Constitution itself has within it the machinery to expel any representative from a state where the voting rights of the people are violated. You don’t even need new legislation. Any person in Congress right now, who is there from a state or a district where the voting rights of the people are violated, that particular person should be expelled from Congress. And when you expel him, you’ve removed one of the obstacles in the path of any real meaningful legislation in this country. In fact, when you expel them, you don’t need new legislation, because they will be replaced by black representatives from counties and districts where the black man is in the majority, not in the minority.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

People , Democracy , Personality , Country

“I see less and less... I need to avoid lateral light, which darkens my colors. Nevertheless, I always paint at the times of day most propitious for me, as long as my paint tubes and brushes are not mixed up.... I will paint almost blind, as Beethoven composed completely deaf.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote, Jan. 1921, to journalist Marcel Pays. Monet in the 20th Century, by Paul Hayes Tucker.
1920 - 1926

Color , Light , Time , Painting

“These displaced people need something, and the clergy can’t give it to them—or it’s impossible for them to take what the clergy offers. The clergy says it’s enough, and so does the Bible. The people say it isn’t enough, and I suspect they’re right.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Player Piano

Source: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 9 (p. 92)

People

“Mankind’s problems can no longer be solved by national governments. What is needed is a World Government. This can best be achieved by strengthening the United Nations system. In some cases, this would mean changing the role of UN agencies from advice-giving to implementation. But some of the most important new institutions would be financial—a World Treasury and a World Central Bank. Just as each nation has a system of income redistribution, so there should be a corresponding ‘World Financial Policy’ to be implemented by the World Bank and the World Central Bank. Some of these proposals are, no doubt, far-fetched and beyond the horizon of today’s political possibilities. But the idealist of today often turns out to be the realists of tomorrow.”

Jan Tinbergen (1903–1994) Dutch economist

Source: United Nations, Human Development Report 1994 http://books.google.com/books?id=pSa5Zrg5TnEC&pg=PA88, (1994), p. 88

World , Problem , Change

“It is difficult to make a general judgement about genetic modification (GM), whether vegetable or animal, medical or agricultural, since these vary greatly among themselves and call for specific considerations. The risks involved are not always due to the techniques used, but rather to their improper or excessive application. Genetic mutations, in fact, have often been, and continue to be, caused by nature itself. Nor are mutations caused by human intervention a modern phenomenon. The domestication of animals, the crossbreeding of species and other older and universally accepted practices can be mentioned as examples. We need but recall that scientific developments in GM cereals began with the observation of natural bacteria which spontaneously modified plant genomes. In nature, however, this process is slow and cannot be compared to the fast pace induced by contemporary technological advances, even when the latter build upon several centuries of scientific progress.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

§ 133
2010s, 2015, Laudato si' : Care for Our Common Home

Nature , Universe , Animals

“I need your help. The abstruse nature of the subject requires not only concentrated reading, not alone clear understanding, but co-operation with the author. For that which could easily be made comprehensible by personal contact and demonstration, must of necessity depend on mere words and intellectual concepts. Many of the questions that may arise in your mind during or after reading of each chapter can best be answered through the practical application of the exercises prescribed herein. Unfortunately, there is no other way to co-operate: the technique of acting can never be properly understood without practicing it.”

Michael Chekhov (1891–1955) Russian actor and director

To the Actor. London and New York: Routledge (2003)

Way , Exercises , Understanding , Question

“Obama: Now, I swore an oath to uphold the laws on the books, but that doesn't mean I don't know very well the real pain and heartbreak that deportations cause. I share your concerns and I understand them. And I promise you, we are responding to your concerns and working every day to make sure we are enforcing flawed laws in the most humane and best possible way. Now, I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own. [Applause] And believe me, right now dealing with Congress —
Audience: Yes, you can! Yes, you can! Yes, you can! Yes, you can! Yes, you can!
Obama: Believe me — believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting. [Laughter] I promise you. Not just on immigration reform. [Laughter] But that's not how — that's not how our system works.
Audience member: Change it!
Obama: That’s not how our democracy functions. That's not how our Constitution is written. So let’s be honest. I need a dance partner here — and the floor is empty.”

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

Remarks to the National Council of La Raza (25 July 2011) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/07/25/remarks-president-national-council-la-raza
2011

Pain , People , Books , Law

“I define speech as any communicative activity. [Can it be nonverbal? ] Yes. [Can it be nonverbal and also not written? ] Yes. [Can it encompass physical actions? ] Yes. Watt [Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Watt, 703 F.2d 586 (1983)] was a case in which what was at issue was sleeping as communicative activity. What I said was that for purposes of the heightened protections that are accorded, sleeping could not be speech. That is to say, I did not say that one could prohibit sleeping merely for the purpose of eliminating the communicative aspect of sleeping, if there is any... [and] I did not say that the Government could seek to prohibit that communication without running afoul of the heightened standards of the first amendment. If they passed a law that allows all other sleeping but only prohibits sleeping where it is intended to communicate, then it would be invalidated. But what I did say was, where you have a general law that just applies to an activity which in itself is normally not communicative, such as sleeping, spitting, whatever you like; clenching your fist, for example; such a law would not be subject to the heightened standards of the first amendment. That is to say, if there is ordinary justification for it, it is fine. It does not have to meet the high need, the no other available alternative requirements of the first amendment. Whereas, when you are dealing with communicative activity, naturally communicative activity—writing, speech, and so forth— any law, even if it is general, across the board, has to meet those higher standards.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, (8/5/1986), transcript https://web.archive.org/web/20060213232846/http://a255.g.akamaitech.net/7/255/2422/22sep20051120/www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciary/sh99-1064/31-110.pdf at pp. 51-52).
1980s

Law , Communication , Nature , Sleep

“If at least, time enough were alloted to me to accomplish my work, I would not fail to mark it with the seal of Time, the idea of which imposed itself upon me with so much force to-day, and I would therein describe men, if need be, as monsters occupying a place in Time infinitely more important than the restricted one reserved for them in space, a place, on the contrary, prolonged immeasurably since, simultaneously touching widely separated years and the distant periods they have lived through — between which so many days have ranged themselves — they stand like giants immersed in Time.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

Final lines, Ch. III : An afternoon party at the house of the Princesse de Guermantes"; translation by Stephen Hudson, Time Regained (1931)
If enough time was left to me to complete my work, my first concern would be to describe the people in it, even at the risk of making them seem colossal and unnatural creatures, as occupying a place far larger than the very limited one reserved for them in space, a place in fact almost infinitely extended, since they are in simultaneous contact, like giants immersed in the years, with such distant periods of their lives, between which so many days have taken up their place – in Time.
Translation by Ian Patterson, Finding Time Again (2002)
In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol. VII: The Past Recaptured (1927)

Men , Idea , Distant , Time