Quotes about need (10000 quotes, page 85)

“I was weak and pathetic and I couldn't control myself. An explanation, especially a bullshit one, doesn't alter the circumstances. I need to change, I have to change, and at this point, change is my only option, unless I am ready to die. All that matters is that I make myself something else and someone else for the future.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

A Million Little Pieces (2003)

Change , Future

“Straight men need to be emasculated. I'm sorry. They all need to be slapped around. Women have been kept down for too long. Every straight guy should have a man's tongue in his mouth at least once.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

From Sex book

Women , Men , Guy

“That you need a village, if only for the pleasure of leaving it. Your own village means that you're not alone, that you know there's something of you in the people and the plants and the soil, that even when you are not there it waits to welcome you.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

Source: The moon and the bonfire (1950), Chapter I, p. 9

People , Pleasure , Waiting

“Our community is organized, it’s strong, it’s paying attention and it needs to ensure a place at the political table, now and for future generations of transgender leaders.”

Theresa Sparks (1949) American activist

The Transgender Community Needs to Reestablish Its Voice (2005)

Communication , Strong , Future

“On all the matters that touch upon the critical moral issues, Arnold Schwarzenegger is on the evil side. This is a fact. A mere list of the positions he supports is enough to make this plain: abortion as a "right," cloning of human beings, governmental classification of citizens by race, public benefits for sexual partners outside of marriage, disrespect for property rights against environmental extremism, repudiation of the right to bear arms — no more need be said to show that this candidate is wrong where human decency, human rights and human responsibility bear directly on political issues. Last week, we saw Schwarzenegger does not deny habitual crude offenses against young women. Rather, he theatrically, vaguely and impersonally apologizes for them, before a roaring crowd of adoring fans, admitting neither any connection between action and character, nor any need for genuine penance or reformation. The Republicans who vote for Schwarzenegger will owe Bill Clinton an apology for having given the nation the impression that they sincerely believed character to be an issue for those claiming high office.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

" Arnold's corruption of Republican Party http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/columns/03_10_06wnd.htm", WorldNetDaily, October 6, 2003.
Miscellaneous

Women , Marriage , Support , Evil

“Men have three basic needs: Eating, sleeping, sex. That's it.”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Here's Your Sign Live! (2004)

Men , Sex , Sleep

“Israel needs to take more active steps… Bury suicide bombers in potter's fields rather than deliver their bodies to relatives (who turn their funerals into frenzied demonstrations)…Permit no transportation of people or goods beyond basic necessities. Shut off utilities to the PA… Raze the PA's illegal offices in Jerusalem, its security infrastructure and villages from which attacks are launched.”

Daniel Pipes (1949) U.S. neoconservative columnist, author, counter-terrorism analyst, and scholar of Middle Eastern history

National Post (July 18, 2001).

People , Suicide

“I regret I no longer have the years of youth needed to create a beautiful series of views of this place, which would in any case be rather difficult to paint due to the monuments, which require a good draughtsmanship and long stays in the city, like Ziem used to do in the past.”

Eugène Boudin (1824–1898) French painter

Quote of Boudin from Venice, c. 1893-94; as cited in 'Venice, The Grand Canal', by Anne-Marie Bergeret-Gourbin https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/boudin-eugene/venice-grand-canal, Museo Thyssen
1880s - 1890s

Youth , Beauty , Past , Painting

“There are no excuses for my extremist past, for the suffering I caused to loved ones, to family, to friends, to those many more, those far more, 'unknown others' who were or who became the 'enemies' posited by some extremist ideology. No excuses because the extremism, the intolerance, the hatred, the violence, the inhumanity, the prejudice were mine; my responsibility, born from and expressive of my character; and because the discovery of, the learning of, the need to live, to regain, my humanity arose because of and from others and not because of me. Thus what exposed my hubris - what for me broke down that certitude-of-knowing which extremism breeds and re-presents - was not something I did; not something I achieved; not something related to my character, my nature, at all. Instead, it was a gift offered to me by two others - the legacy left by their tragic early dying. That it took not one but two personal tragedies - some thirteen years apart - for me to accept and appreciate the gift of their love, their living, most surely reveals my failure, the hubris that for so long suffused me, and the strength and depth of my so lamentable extremism.”

David Myatt (1950) British writer

Source: Pathei-Mathos – Genesis of My Unknowing (2012) http://www.davidmyatt.info/genesis-of-my-unknowing.html

Love , Family , Failure , Nature

“I finally learned from Fred Durst, who is [of] my generation, that "selling out" means every ticket at The Forum got sold. I don't think Britney [Spears] and Christina [Aguilera] sit there agonizing over their record sales. The [term] "sell out" needs to be eradicated from the language, because if you don't "sell out," guess what? An asshole will.”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

On the notion of "selling out" in the music industry, 24 Hours of Love MTV2 Special (21 September 2005)
1996–2005

Thinking , Learning

“The Soviet leaders accused Comrade Stalin of allegedly interfering in other parties, of imposing the views of the Bolshevik Party upon others. We can bear witness to the fact that at no time did comrade Stalin do such a thing towards us, towards the Albanian people and the Party of Labor of Albania, he always behaved as a great Marxist, as an outstanding internationalist, as a comrade, brother and sincere friend of the Albanian people. In 1945, when our people were threatened with starvation, comrade Stalin ordered the ships loaded with grain destined for the Soviet people, who also were in dire need of food at that time, and sent the grain at once to the Albanian people. Whereas, the present Soviet leaders permit themselves these ugly deeds.”

Enver Hoxha (1908–1985) the Communist leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of L…

Speeches, Moscow Address

People , Food , Time , Sincerity

“I decided a handful of years ago that I just want to write songs that you can understand as soon as you put the record on. There’s no need to veil what’s happening in the song the way I used to.
My goal as a songwriter now is to simply write some memorable turns of phrase.”

Ben Gibbard (1976) American singer, songwriter and guitarist

Source: The Meaning Of Life, II

Way , Understanding

“Steve Jobs was a true visionary who refused to listen to customers — believing that he knew better than they did about what they needed. He ruled with an iron fist and did not tolerate dissent of any type. … Apple may have peaked. … its last major innovation — the iPhone — was released in June 2007.”

Vivek Wadhwa American academic

Why I'm skeptical about Apple's future http://washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/03/23/why-im-skeptical-about-apples-future in The Washington Post (23 March 2016)

“Suppose you wanted to kill people. You would need to know ahead of time how to do it. That part is not too difficult. There are many ways. Some of them are better than others. Most of them have drawbacks. So you use what knowledge you've got, and you invent a new way. You think, and you think, and you think, and you come up with the perfect method. You pay a lot of attention to the setup. Because the perfect method is not an easy method, and careful preparation is very important. But that stuff is meat and potatoes to you. You have no problem with careful preparation. No problem at all. How could you, with your intelligence? After all your training? You know the big problems will come afterward. How do you make sure you get away with it? You use your knowledge. You know more than most people about how the cops work. You've seen them on duty many times, sometimes close-up. You know what they look for. So you don't leave anything for them to find. You go through it all in your head, very precisely and very exactly and very carefully. Just as carefully as you would mark the play card you knew for sure was going to win you a fortune.”

Lee Child book Running Blind

Source: Running Blind (2000), Ch. 1.

People , Way , Intelligence , Knowledge

“Faith — saving faith — whatever other definition may be framed — is best described as that act of the soul by which the whole man is given over to the guardianship of the Mediator. He who thus resigns himself to Jesus avouches two things: first, his belief that he needs a protector; secondly, his belief that Christ is just that protector which his necessities require.”

Henry Melvill (1798–1871) British academic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 225.

Faith , Soul , Christ

“We find in the history of ideas mutations which do not seem to correspond to any obvious need, and at first sight appear as mere playful whimsies — such as Apollonius' work on conic sections, or the non-Euclidean geometries, whose practical value became apparent only later.”

Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) Hungarian-British author and journalist

as quoted by Michael Grossman in the The First Nonlinear System of Differential and Integral Calculus (1979).
The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959)

History , Idea , Appearance

“When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.”

John Green book Looking for Alaska

Miles "Pudge" Halter, pp. 220-221
Looking for Alaska (2005)

Stupidity , Smile , Thinking , Change

“The European Union as a whole, but also Germany, needs to recognize that this is our alliance, our common alliance, our transatlantic alliance, that we have to step up our engagement. Because, in the long run, we will not be allowed to accept this imbalance as regards the contributions we give to this alliance. And we have understood this message, and we have started to react.”

Angela Merkel (1954) Chancellor of Germany

2016, Joint press conference of 17 November 2016

“Mises believed that feminism was an assertion of equality, a revolt against nature, and therefore akin to socialism; that the family and marital fidelity were essential to civilization; that it was possible to make broad generalizations and perhaps scientific statements about races and ethnic groups; that apparent racial inequalities ought to be studied, although not used to influence state policy; that "Eurocentrism" was the proper outlook; and that one need not be sympathetic to mass culture or the counterculture, as Mises emphatically was not, to support the free market.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Source: Cultural Thought of Ludwig von Mises, anne, 2014-07-30, Mises Institute, 2016-05-22 https://mises.org/library/cultural-thought-ludwig-von-mises-0,

Family , Support , Nature , Study

“Dads in the family are even more important than women in the workplace: The workplace benefits from women, but the family needs dads.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 114.

Women , Family

“Actually the crimes of the Maoists against human rights have gone much too far, and the Chinese people are now in much greater need of help from the world's democratic forces to defend their rights than in need of the unity of the world's Communist forces, in the Maoist sense, for the purpose of combating the so-called imperialist peril somewhere in Africa or in Latin America or in the Middle East.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Dangers, Police Dictatorships

People , World , Sense , Help

“The progress of science requires more than new data; it needs novel frameworks and contexts. And where do these fundamentally new views of the world arise? They are not simply discovered by pure observation; they require new modes of thought. And where can we find them, if old modes do not even include the right metaphors? The nature of true genius must lie in the elusive capacity to construct these new modes from apparent darkness. The basic chanciness and unpredictability of science must also reside in the inherent difficulty of such a task.”

Stephen Jay Gould book The Flamingo's Smile

"False Premise, Good Science", p. 138
The Flamingo's Smile (1985)

Lie , World , Nature , Science

“A science fiction writer is—or should be—constrained by what is, or logically might be. That can mean simple fidelity to facts (which, in science, are always more important than theories—though Lord knows the two help shape each other, undermining the convenient, complacent separation of observer and observed). To me it also means heeding the authentic, the actual and concrete. Bad fiction uses the glossy generality; good writing needs the smattering of detail, the unrelenting busy mystery of the real.”

Gregory Benford (1941) Science fiction author and astrophysicist

Afterword to Exposures, p. 246
In Alien Flesh (1986)

Business , Science , Help

“True or false? "America is falling behind in world competition". The surprise answer is "false". Recent research on industrialized nations shows that American workers outproduce workers in Germany and France by 20 percent, workers in Britain by over 30 percent, and Japanese workers by over 60 percent. The reason has nothing to do with technology, worker attitude, or worker skill… [Looking] at some of the best American firms… [we can concluded] that the key to strategic advantage is organization: they are organized to focus on the things that motivate their own people, and organized to anticipate customer needs.”

Robert H. Waterman (1950) American writer

Robert H. Waterman (1994). What America Does Right: Learning from Companies that Put People First. W.W. Norton; Book summary .

People , World , Motivation , Falseness

“In quantum theory, distance is inverse to energy, because you need particles of very high energy to probe very short distances. The inverse of the Planck energy is the Planck length.”

Lee Smolin (1955) American cosmologist

"Loop Quantum Gravity," The New Humanists: Science at the Edge (2003)

“There is no need to deny that other 'objectives' are often important—power, prestige, public approval, or the mere love of the game— it need only be recognized that the attainment of these ends more often than not is associated directly with the ability to make profits.”

Edith Penrose (1914–1996) economist

Source: The Theory of the Growth of the Firm, 1959, p. 30

Love , Game

““But then—you’re telling me they brought unrestricted communications with them?” he asked.
“Yup.” Rachel looked up from her console. “We’ve been trying for years to tell your leaders, in the nicest possible way: information wants to be free. But they wouldn’t listen. For forty years we tried. Then along comes the Festival, which treats censorship as a malfunction and routes communications around it. The Festival won’t take no for an answer because it doesn’t have an opinion on anything; it just is.”
“But information isn’t free. It can’t be. I mean, some things — if anyone could read anything they wanted, they might read things that would tend to deprave and corrupt them, wouldn’t they? People might give exactly the same consideration to blasphemous pornography that they pay to the Bible! They could plot against the state, or each other, without the police being able to listen in and stop them!”
Martin sighed. “You’re still hooked on the state thing, aren’t you?” he said. “Can you take it from me, there are other ways of organizing your civilization?”
“Well—” Vassily blinked at him in mild confusion. “Are you telling me you let information circulate freely where you come from?”
“It’s not a matter of permitting it,” Rachel pointed out. “We had to admit that we couldn’t prevent it. Trying to prevent it was worse than the disease itself.”
“But, but lunatics could brew up biological weapons in their kitchens, destroy cities! Anarchists would acquire the power to overthrow the state, and nobody would be able to tell who they were or where they belonged anymore. The most foul nonsense would be spread, and nobody could stop it—” Vassily paused. “You don’t believe me,” he said plaintively.
“Oh, we believe you alright,” Martin said grimly. “It’s just—look, change isn’t always bad. Sometimes freedom of speech provides a release valve for social tensions that would lead to revolution. And at other times, well—what you’re protesting about boils down to a dislike for anything that disturbs the status quo. You see your government as a security blanket, a warm fluffy cover that’ll protect everybody from anything bad all the time. There’s a lot of that kind of thinking in the New Republic; the idea that people who aren’t kept firmly in their place will automatically behave badly. But where I come from, most people have enough common sense to avoid things that’d harm them; and those that don’t, need to be taught. Censorship just drives problems underground.”
“But, terrorists!”
“Yes,” Rachel interrupted, “terrorists. There are always people who think they’re doing the right thing by inflicting misery on their enemies, kid. And you’re perfectly right about brewing up biological weapons and spreading rumors. But—” She shrugged. “We can live with a low background rate of that sort of thing more easily than we can live with total surveillance and total censorship of everyone, all the time.” She looked grim. “If you think a lunatic planting a nuclear weapon in a city is bad, you’ve never seen what happens when a planet pushed the idea of ubiquitous surveillance and censorship to the limit. There are places where—” She shuddered.”

Charles Stross book Singularity Sky

Source: Singularity Sky (2003), Chapter 14, “The Telephone Repairman” (pp. 296-297)

People , Disease , Way , Communication

“There is no question that the adult caregivers play an important role in the baby's life. It is from these older people that babies learn their first language, have their first experiences in forming and maintaining relationships, and get their first lessons in following rules. But the socialization researchers go on to draw other conclusions: that what children learn in the early years about relationships and rules sets the pattern for later relationships and later rule-following, and hence determines the entire course of their lives. I used to think so too. I still believe that children need to learn about relationships and rules in their early years; it is also important that they acquire a language. But I no longer believe that this early learning, which in our society generally takes place within the home, sets the pattern for what is to follow. Although the learning itself serves a purpose, the content of what children learn may be irrelevant to the world outside their home. They may cast it off when they step outside as easily as the dorky sweater their mother made them wear.”

Judith Rich Harris book The Nurture Assumption

The Nurture Assumption, chapter 1. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/harris-nurture.html

Life , Children , People , World

“Politics is a subordinate matter; its form of appearance constantly changes depending on the needs of the masses, the same way cocottes adjust to the needs of men by transforming and masking themselves. Because of that it is not fundamental. That is about what endures, what is unique, what is in the stream of illusions – what is eliminated from the workings of the shadows.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

In a letter to Stephan Lackner, Amsterdam, 29 January 1938; as quoted in Max Beckmann – On my Painting, in the preface, Mayen Beckmann; Tate Publishing London, 2003
1930s

Men , Way , Appearance , Change

“When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

Remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (25 February 2002) http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/031104A.shtml.
2002

Death , People , Penalty

“With the conception that the Revolution was only a means of securing political power, it was inevitable that all revolutionary values should be subordinated to the needs of the Socialist State; indeed, exploited to further the security of the newly acquired governmental power.”

Emma Goldman book My Disillusionment in Russia

My Disillusionment in Russia (1923)

“What we need is to make a renewed attempt to worship the objective of God, not our forefathers' doctrines about him.”

Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) Philosopher

"A hundred years of thinking about God" (1998)

God

“One of the things that pushed me to change my diet is that the average football player dies at 56 years of age. That's because they're constantly drinking milk and whey protein shakes, eating steak and chicken. … We thought, 'We're big dudes, we need to eat meat to be men.' I thought that too. But you're screwing your insides up. You're taking advantage of a helpless animal. You're killing a life that you don't need to take. With dairy, you're stealing breast milk that's meant for the baby cows and drinking it yourself. How is that manly? Men are supposed to be protectors.”

David Carter (1987) Player of American Football

Interview in the book What the Health https://books.google.it/books?id=FIY8DgAAQBAJ&pg=PT0 by Eunice Wong (Xlibris, 2017).

Life , Men , Age , Drink

“This needs to be said: there never was a war. "How can you say that, Bill?" Well, a war is when two armies are fighting. So you can see, right there, there never was a war … People say to me, "Hey, Bill, the war made us feel better about ourselves." Really? What kind of people are these with such low self-esteem that they need a war to feel better about themselves? May I suggest, instead of a war to feel better about yourself, perhaps … sit-ups? Maybe a fruit cup? Eight glasses of water a day?”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

on Persian Gulf War
Chicago '91 (1991)

War , People , Feeling , Water

“I have always been a religious person in the sense that I maintain a working partnership with God. I was aware that the best work required more ability than I possessed and therefore I needed help that only God could give me. I made a true estimate of my own ability, then raised it by 50 per cent and put myself in God's hands. In this partnership, I have always received all the power I needed, and in fact have actually felt it flowing through me. Today, I can affirm that the kingdom of God is within you in the form of this power, to help achieve your goals and realise your dreams.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 49.

God , Dreams , Sense , Help

“I really need to know
I may just never see you again, or might as well
You took advantage of a world that loved you well
I'm going to a town that has already been burnt down
I'm so tired of you, America.”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

Going to a Town
Song lyrics, Release the Stars (2007)

Love , World

“Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire p. 90.

Success

“Amusingly, it [astrology] falls foul of our modern taboo against lazy stereotyping. How would we react if a newspaper published a daily column that read something like this: "Germans: It is in your nature to be hard-working and methodical, which should serve you well at work today. In your personal relationships, especially this evening, you will need to curb your natural tendency to obey orders. Chinese: Inscrutability has many advantages, but it may be your undoing today. British: Your stiff upper lip may serve you well in business dealings, but try to relax and let yourself go in your social life.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

The Enemies of Reason, "Slaves to Superstition" [1.01], 13 August 2007, timecode 0:05:54ff
The Enemies of Reason (August 2007)

Life , Business , Nature , Reading

“It is to our lack of proper content ("notre manque de contenu propre », Fr.), of our inner emptiness that we need occupations and distractions, otherwise ("faute de quoi", Fr.) we experience boredom, which is nothing elses than the feeling of unease that take hold of us when our spirit is not absorbed by the mirages of life.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 56.

Life , Feeling

“We do need to ask ourselves, as a society, as a free people, how we came to this pass. Those soldiers were acting in the name of America, and they disgraced its name. We have to ask who authorized them to do so. Who should take responsibility here? We need answers to these questions, and we need to take responsibility as citizens that we get answers, and that accountability is established, right up the chain of command if need be, so that we do not go here again as a country.”

Michael Ignatieff (1947) professor at Harvard Kennedy School and former Canadian politician

From "Living Fearlessly in a Fearless World" Ignatieff Commencement Address to Whitman College (USA), 2004

People , Question , Country

“People say, "get us out of the UN, we don't need the UN", we invented the UN. This is us, we are the ones who founded the idea of nations working together, and I think that's something we need to do. And it's, it's messy, and it's really complicated, and there's going to be a lot of countries out there that expect us to clean up there mess, or just want to see us fall on (our) face. And they love that, which is what I think president Obama said brilliantly at the UN, when he basically said, "that ok". If I'm paraphrasing, I don't think he's ever said "ok" in his life, he's probably said "well". But basically he said, "look, for the last eight years you've been on our case about going it alone, you know, we're imperialists, we're hegemonic, we're going it alone, we're going it alone… Ok, we're not going it alone anymore, we're going to listen to you, but you better ante up and kick in. Because, you don't have the right to have an opinion, if you can't back it up. It's put up or shut up time". And I was so happy when he said that, and the way he handled the Latin (American) countries, when he was dealing with the crisis in Central America, the coups in Honduras. And he said, "the very same countries who accuse us of doing nothing, are also the same ones who accuse us of being imperialistic. You can't have it both ways."”

Max Brooks (1972) American author

Lecture of Opportunity | Max Brooks: World War Z https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nGG5E04cog

Love , Life , People , Way

“Thus, to understand what consciousness is, we need to understand what causes it, what its function(s) may be, how it relates to nonconscious processing in the brain and so on.”

Max Velmans (1942) British psychologist

Max Velmans (Ed.) (1996). The Science of Consciousness: Psychological, Neuropsychological and Clinical Reviews. Routledge. p. 3

Understanding

“The true Mystic, realising God, has no need of any Scriptures, for he has touched the source whence all Scriptures flow.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

The Theosophical Writings of Annie Besant http://books.google.co.in/books?id=eIrD4GQFCPIC&pg=PT437

God

“The only means which have been placed in my power of "raising the wages of colliers" has been by endeavouring to beat down all those restrictions upon trade which tend to reduce the price to be obtained for the product of their labour, & to lower as much as may be the taxes on the commodities which they may require for use or for consumption. Beyond this I look to the forethought not yet so widely diffused in this country as in Scotland, & in some foreign lands; & I need not remind you that in order to facilitate its exercise the Government have been empowered by Legislation to become through the Dept. of the P. O. the receivers & guardians of savings.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Daniel Jones, an unemployed collier who complained of unemployment and of low wages (20 October 1869) as quoted in The Gladstone Diaries: With Cabinet Minutes and Prime-ministerial Correspondence: 1869-June 1871 Vol. 7 (1982) by H. C. G. Matthew, p. lxxiv
1860s

Exercises , Country

“This principle of cosmic subjection has by theists always been realised with reference to God: the natural world, they are always telling us, however full of laws to which other conscious beings are subject, is completely subject to the mind and will of God, and its laws are imposed upon it from his mind in virtue of his creating it. What we now learn, and need to note, is that this is just as true of any other being who can be reckoned free. If men are free, then, they must be taken as being logically prior to Nature; as being its source rather than its outcome; as determining its order instead of being determined by this.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.325

Men , God , World , Law

“I would suggest that just as women who make it in the world of business need male business mentors, perhaps men who make it in the world of emotions will need female emotional mentors.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 317.

Women , Men , World , Business

“Winning the Nobel Prize does not automatically qualify you to be commander in chief. I think George Bush has proved definitively that to be president, you don’t need to care about science, literature or peace.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

"A Mock Columnist, Amok" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14dowd.html, in The New York Times (14 October 2007)

Peace , Literature , Thinking , Science

“The Nordic welfare model is in many aspects a good model but it needs more of a choice for individuals.”

Fredrik Reinfeldt (1965) 32nd Prime Minister of Sweden

ibid

“We have more information now than we can use, and less knowledge and understanding than we need. Indeed, we seem to collect information because we have the ability to do so, but we are so busy collecting it that we haven’t devised a means of using it. The true measure of any society is not what it knows but what it does with what it knows.”

Warren Bennis (1925–2014) American leadership expert

Warren G. Bennis (1990) Why leaders can't lead: the unconscious conspiracy continues. p. 143
1990s

Understanding , Business , Knowledge

“"If you call me V. S. once again," she said, "I shall scream - I warn you!"
Sam patted her arm. "You need a butter-pie," he said kindly.”

Diana Wynne Jones book A Tale of Time City

Source: A Tale of Time City (1987), p. 73.

“The strangest mores of the most of-the-way societies will, in spite of everything, be relatively comprehensible to the person who has a flesh-and-blood knowledge of man’s needs, anxieties, and hopes. If, on the other hand, this experience is lacking, he will not even be able to understand the customs of those about him.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

139
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

Hope , Way , Understanding , Knowledge

“These days I see America identified more and more with material things, less and less with spiritual standards. These days I see America acting abroad as an arrogant, selfish, greedy nation interested only in guns and dollars, not in people and their hopes and aspirations. We need a faith that dedicates us to something bigger and more important than ourselves or our possessions. Only if we have that faith will we be able to guide the destiny of nations in this the most critical period of world history.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Essay for This I Believe (1952)
Other speeches and writings

People , World , Faith , Hope

“The Web provided me with a much needed realization that information cannot be fully separated from its presentation, and showed me something I knew without verbalizing explicitly, that the presentation form we choose communicates real information.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: S-exp vs XML, HTML, LaTeX (was: Why lisp is growing) http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9a30c508201627ee (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Communication

“While doing justice to the intellectual power with which a few Circles have for many generations maintained their supremacy over immense multitudes of their countrymen, he believes that the facts of Flatland, speaking for themselves without comment on his part, declare that Revolutions cannot always be suppressed by slaughter, and that Nature, in sentencing the Circles to infecundity, has condemned them to ultimate failure — "and herein," he says, "I see a fulfilment of the great Law of all worlds, that while the wisdom of Man thinks it is working one thing, the wisdom of Nature constrains it to work another, and quite a different and far better thing." For the rest, he begs his readers not to suppose that every minute detail in the daily life of Flatland must needs correspond to some other detail in Spaceland; and yet he hopes that, taken as a whole, his work may prove suggestive as well as amusing, to those Spacelanders of moderate and modest minds who — speaking of that which is of the highest importance, but lies beyond experience — decline to say on the one hand, "This can never be," and on the other hand, "It must needs be precisely thus, and we know all about it."”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Preface to the Second and Revised Edition (1884)
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884)

Life , Wisdom , World , Justice

“The Penan do not have many possessions. They have lived for generations in the Borneo forests in harmony with their environment, taking what they need from the jungle, leaving no footprint but that of bare feet on muddy earth washed away with each rain. It was not difficult for them to regroup and move deeper into the forest. They would not be missed and traces of their ephemeral presence would soon be erased.”

Shamini Flint book Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder

Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder, Cap 9

“Words are not (except in their own little corner) facts or things: we need therefore to prise them off the world, to hold them apart from and against it, so that we can realize their inadequacies and arbitrariness, and can relook at the world without blinkers.”

J. L. Austin (1911–1960) English philosopher

Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), p. 182.

World

“No debts. I have very little debt to anybody. I don't need debt. You know, it's very interesting, I'm so liquid, I don't need debt. And if I need debt, if I want debt, I can get it from banks in New York City very easily.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, July, This Week Interview (July 30, 2016)

“If you need to get upset or angry with someone, do so in a very conscious way so that you don’t lose control or react without thinking. You cannot spend your life apologizing for having lost control of your emotions.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Life , Way , Thinking

“There are ways to really live in the present moment. What's the alternative? It is always now. However much you feel you may need to plan for the future, to anticipate it, to mitigate risks, the reality of your life is now. This may sound trite… but it's the truth… As a matter of conscious experience, the reality of your life is always now. I think this is a liberating truth about the human mind. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand about your mind than that if you want to be happy in this world. The past is a memory. It's a thought arising in the present. The future is merely anticipated, it is another thought arising now. What we truly have is this moment. And this. And we spend most of our lives forgetting this truth. Repudiating it. Fleeing it. Overlooking it. And the horror is that we succeed. We manage to never really connect with the present moment and find fulfillment there because we are continually hoping to become happy in the future, and the future never arrives.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris, "Death and the Present Moment", speech at the Global Atheist Convention (April 2012) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITTxTCz4Ums&t=21m21s
2010s

Life , Truth , World , Hope

“Faith plays an important role in an open society. Exactly because our understanding is imperfect, we cannot base our decisions on knowledge alone. We need to rely on beliefs, religious or otherwise, to help us make decisions. But we must remain open to the possibility that we may be wrong so that we can correct our mistakes. Otherwise, we are bound to be wrong.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Speech at the National Press Club (2004)

Faith , Understanding , Knowledge , Decision

“…we must go to the poets to see what they all meant by it; but the sum is an emotion — clear and strong as love and much clearer than logic,— whose charm lies in its unstable balance. The Transition is the equilibrium between the Love of God,— which is Faith, and the Logic of God,— which is Reason; between the round arch and the pointed. One may not be sure which pleases most, but one need not be harsh towards people who think that the moment of balance is exquisite. The last and highest moment is seen at Chartres where, in 1200, the charm depends on the constant doubt whether emotion or science is uppermost.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Love , God , People , Faith

“My surroundings here [in the asylum St. Remy ] begin to weigh on me more than I can express - my word, I have had patience for more than a year - I need air, I feel overwhelmed with boredom and depression.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, May 1890; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 631), p. 26
1890s

Feeling , Patience

“I am convinced that the French could not win the war because the internal political situation in Vietnam, weak and confused, badly weakened their military position. I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bao Dai was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for. As one Frenchman said to me, "What Vietnam needs is another Syngman Rhee, regardless of all the difficulties the presence of such a personality would entail.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower book Mandate for Change

The White House Years: Mandate for Change: 1953–1956: A Personal Account (1963); longer passage http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/ike1.html quoted at Montclair State University
1960s

War , Feeling , Knowledge , Time

“I said I knew a very wise man so much of Sir Christopher's sentiment, that he believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads he need not care who should make the laws of a nation, and we find that most of the ancient legislators thought that they could not well reform the manners of any city without the help of a lyric, and sometimes of a dramatic poet.”

Andrew Fletcher (1961–2022) English musician, member of Depeche Mode

An ACCOUNT of A CONVERSATION concerning A RIGHT REGULATION of GOVERNMENTS For the common Good of Mankind: In A LETTER to the Marquiss of Montrose , the Earls of Rothes, Roxburg and Haddington , From London the first of December, 1703'. Later variants express the sentiment in the first person, e.g.:
Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.
Give me the making of a people's songs, and I care not who makes its laws.
They may also substitute equivalent words, such as "songs" for "ballads" or "country" for "nation". The sentiment is sometimes attributed to Plato, but does not appear in his works. Austin Matzko has discovered http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/2006/10/20/what-plato-might-have-said-but-didnt/ that the mistaken attribution probably originated in an ambiguous sentence in Donald J. Grout's A History of Western Music (1973, p. 8).

Law , Help

“We need a spirit of adoption to take us out of the foundling hospital of the world, and to put us into the celestial family.”

George Boardman the Younger (1828–1903) American theologian

Reported Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), edited by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 7.

World , Family

“I have on my office wall a wise and useful reminder by Anne Morrow Lindbergh concerning one of the realities of life. She wrote, "My life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds." That's good counsel for us all, not as an excuse to forgo duty, but as a sage point about pace and the need for quality in relationships.”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

Deposition of a Disciple, 1976, Deseret Book Co. (Salt Lake City), p. 5.

Life , People , Reality , Heart

“Like the biologist, the economist predicts the effects of environmental changes on the surviving class of living organisms; the economist need not assume that each participant is aware of, or acts according to, his cost and demand situation.”

Armen Alchian (1914–2013) American economist

"Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory", 1950

Change

“If plants, and live stock as well, require space and air, sunlight and love, children need them even more. The only real wealth of our country lies in the men and women of the next generation. A farmer would rather produce a thousand thoroughbreds than a million runts. How are we to breed a race of human thoroughbreds unless we follow the same plan? We must make this country into a garden of children instead of a disorderly back lot overrun with human weeds. In a home where there are too many children in proportion to the living space, the air and sunlight, the children are usually overcrowded and underfed. They are a constant burden on their mother's overtaxed strength and the father's earning capacity. Such homes cannot be gardens in any sense of the word.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

Radio WFAB Syracuse, , transcripted in "The Meaning of Radio Birth Control", April 1924, p. 111
Birth Control Review, 1918-32

Love , Women , Men , Children

“Gordon Strachan is as he is. He can be a prickly character to interview. I just think that, just occasionally, we all need to take a step back. This isn’t done for a national audience or for national television - this is the opportunity the manager has to speak to supporters of his club. If that’s how you want to address fans it is entirely Strachan’s responsibility, but I think he needs to revisit that a bit.”

Gordon Strachan (1957) Scottish footballer and manager

Alastair Brownlee, Evening Gazette, Oct 5 2010 http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/2010/10/05/strachan-s-words-too-much-for-boro-fans-84229-27404292/
About

Support , Thinking

“The thing about the Star Wars expanded universe that most impresses me is how the need for endless sequels has taken what was way back in the late Disco a fairly upbeat series where the good guys eventually prevailed and turned into a crapsack setting that's grimmer than the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Congo Wars I & II and the Mongol Conquests combined.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

Bujold list message http://lists.herald.co.uk/pipermail/lois-bujold/2011-February/070018.html (2011)
2010s

War , Way , Guy , Star

“I saw The Lonely Guy all by myself. It was one of those Saturday afternoons where the snow is coming down gray and mean, and you can't even get a decent recorded message on the answering machines of strangers … "Good luck," an usher told me. "You're going to need it." He was right … The Lonely Guy is the kind of movie that seems to have been made to play in empty theaters on overcast January afternoons … [It] is the kind of movie that inspires you to distract yourself by counting the commercial products visible on the screen, and speculating about whether their manufacturers paid fees to have them worked into the movie. I counted two Diet 7-Ups, two Tabs, and Steve Martin.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-lonely-guy-1984 of The Lonely Guy (1 January 1984)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Guy

“Speaking crudely, a living system—an organism—consists of a symbiotic relationship between a metabolism and a replicator. …the replicator contains the blueprint of the organism, with the information needed to grow, make repairs, and reproduce. …the metabolism provides the energy and raw materials needed to build and run the replicator.”

J. Doyne Farmer (1952) American physicist and entrepreneur (b.1952)

The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (1995)

“I'm going to be real surprised if we go two more years. We are so close [to the New World Order]. All we need is one good disaster - which will be manufactured - they create their own disasters. Like the Twin Towers - they blew it up themselves - and they do that so they can bring in their solution. And what they want - if you look at what they want - they want a one world government - a New World Order - with Satan in charge. Period. That's the goal.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

1 May 2006
Truth Radio

World

“A man once said that the pinnacle of success
Was when you've finally lost interest
In money, compliments, and publicity
A noble enough idea I suppose
How on Earth he does this heaven only knows
I know I need a lot more of all three of those
Before I'll ever have the nerve to turn up my nose
At any money, or compliments, or publicity”

Todd Snider (1966) American singer

Money, Compliments, Publicity (Song Number 10).
The Excitement Plan (2009)

Money , Idea , Success

“Any prosperity policy is a delusion and a path to ruin. There is no economic lesson which the people of the United States need to take to heart more than that. In the second place the Spanish mistakes arose, in part, from confusing the public treasury with the national wealth.”

William Graham Sumner (1840–1910) American academic

"The Conquest of the United States by Spain”, speech at Yale 1899 http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/sumner-boll-11-w-g-sumner-the-conquest-of-the-united-states-by-spain-1898.

People , Heart , Parting , Wealth

“The most basic and primitive emotion is love in its various manifestations. This has been neglected in medicine, neglected in psychiatry, and neglected in our society. We don't read in the newspapers about love. We don't read in the medical textbooks about love. We don't read in the psychiatric textbooks above love, except to study it in a pathological way. We must realize that love can activate our life energy and promote healing. This is a matter of vital medical importance. Medicine today pays little if any regard to love and its power to heal. Perhaps what is needed more than anything else is to put love back into medicine.”

John Diamond (doctor) (1934) Australian doctor

Source: Life Energy: Unlocking the Hidden Power of Your Emotions to Achieve Total Well-Being (1985), pp. 37-38

Love , Life , Way , Study

“It goes without saying that only inner greatness possess a true value ("une valeur véritable,", Fr.). Any attempt to rise up (or at rising up, - "s'élever", Fr.) outwardly above others, or to want (or wish) to impose one's superiority, denote a lack of moral greatness, since we do not try to replace ("suppléer", Fr.) in that way (…. in French "par là", Fr.) to what, if we did really possess it, would have no need whatsoever to flaunt itself.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 51.

Way

“The vast array of methods and techniques which comprise Buddhism, particularly the Tibetan tradition, are all to help us come to know simply what we are, buddha, awake and aware. Time and time again, we are told that we are buddha, that the buddha qualities are present now, but that we just don’t know it. The problem, for many of us, is that this knowing is not a form of knowing that we are used to. We need tools and methods to dismantle the emotional blocks, the habitual patterns, the worries, concerns, expectations, and hopes that keep us from trusting and knowing what we are.”

Ken McLeod (1948) Canadian lama

Buddha Nature http://www.unfetteredmind.org/buddha-nature. Unfettered Mind http://www.unfetteredmind.org. (Topic: Practice)

Hope , Problem , Time , Help

“Societies grow into systems. The systems require management and are therefore increasingly wielded, like a tool or a weapon, by those who have power. The rest of the population is still needed to do specific things. But the citizens are not needed to contribute to the form or direction of the society. The more "advanced" the civilization, the more irrelevant the citizen becomes.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

Voltaire's Bastards (1992)

“What maps do you need to review, to see where you are & what to do next? Core to self-management systems.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

23 August 2012 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/238837461663490048
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

“All of them cite that toxic spew, even though there’s not a syllable of supporting evidence. Because the controversy itself became news. Save a country, save a world, save a child—it doesn’t matter. You don’t need proof or even evidence to burn down a man’s soul. All you need is accusation.”

Malcolm Azania book From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 8 “Unrequited Hate” (p. 239)

World , Soul , Support , Country

“The Bible teaches clearly that compromise destroys! We need to return to the authority of God's Word and its answers.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Did Eve really have an Extra Rib?: And other tough questions about the Bible (2002)

God

“We are all agreed on a massive extension of public ownership…We are all agreed on establishing comprehensive planning control over the 100 or so largest companies in Britain. We are all agreed on the need for a national enterprise board to organise and extend public ownership in the profitable manufacturing industries.”

Denis Healey (1917–2015) British Labour Party politician and Life peer

Speech in York (2 June 1973), quoted in The Times (4 June 1973), p. 2.
1970s

“For example, Monstuart Elphinstone, a Governor of Bombay, suggested in his Minute dated 14 May 1859: “Divide et Impera was the old Roman motto, and it should be our”. Given the circumstances, it would have been foolish of any imperialist power not to follow such a policy. But for achieving this aim there was no need for them to distort Indian history. British historians had just to reiterate what the Muslim chroniclers themselves had written about the “glorious achievements” of their kings and conquerors. Their stories needed no proof: they stood confirmed by the hundreds of vandalised medieval monuments. The mistake lay with the misjudgement of our Congress-culture Government and the so-called secularist and Stalinist historians. They chose to treat history as a handmaid of politics to please the Muslim minority. They instructed their text-book writers to eschew mention of unpalatable historical facts like destruction of temples and forced conversions by Muslims in history, language and social science. But perpetration of lies has proved counter-productive. It has encouraged Muslims to ask for proof as to when Babur or Aurangzeb broke this or that temple, knowing full well that such shrines were actually vandalised and razed.”

K. S. Lal book The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India

Source: The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India (1992), Chapter 8

Books , History , Science

“The same piece of music alters at each hearing. But oh, the need to repeat and repeat and repeat unchanged the sexual experience.”

Ned Rorem (1923–2022) American composer

[Who's Who in Contemporary Gay & Lesbian History: From World War II to the Present Day, ISBN 041522974X, 2001, Aldrich, Robert and Wotherspoon, Gary (eds)]

Music

“To stop using the word "free" now would be a mistake; we need more, not less, talk about freedom.
If those using the term "open source" draw more users into our community, that is a contribution, but the rest of us will have to work even harder to bring the issue of freedom to those users' attention. We have to say, "It's free software and it gives you freedom!"”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

more and louder than ever before.
1990s, Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" (1998)

Communication , Freedom , Drawing

“I don't need to pray. I have God in myself.”

Ashraf Pahlavi (1919–2016) Iranian royal

In Bitter American Exile, the Shah's Twin Sister, Ashraf, Defends Their Dynasty (1980)

God

“I’ve always said there’s no hope without endeavor. Hope has no meaning unless we are prepared to work to realize our hopes and dreams but in order to that we do need to have friends. We need those who believe in us. Friends are those who believe in us and who want to help us whatever it is that we are trying to achieve.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought Acceptance Speech (2013)

Dreams , Hope , Help

“You know, friends, so many people have wished me congratulations on a 67-year career in baseball, and they've wished me a wonderful retirement with my family, and now, all I can do is tell you what I wish for you. May God give you, for every storm, a rainbow; for every tear, a smile; for every care, a promise; and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life seems, a faithful friend to share; for every sigh, a sweet song, and an answer for each prayer. You and I have been friends for a long time, but I know, in my heart, I've always needed you more than you've ever needed me, and I'll miss our time together more than I can say. But, you know what, there will be a new day, and, eventually, a new year, and when the upcoming winter gives way to spring, ooh, rest assured, once again, it will be time for Dodger baseball. So, this is Vin Scully wishing you a pleasant good afternoon, wherever you may be.”

Vin Scully (1927) American sports broadcaster

Scully's final sign-off as a Dodger broadcaster.

Life , God , People , Family

“When my ability to reason shows me that the suffering of another being is very similar to my own suffering and matters just as much to that other being as my own suffering matters to me, then my reason is showing me something that is undeniably true…. The perspective on ourselves that we get when we take the point of view of the universe also yields as much objectivity as we need if we are to find a cause that is worthwhile in a way that is independent of our own desires. The most obvious such cause is the reduction of pain and suffering, wherever it is to be found.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

p. 238 http://books.google.com/books?id=BoDMBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT238
Writings on an Ethical Life (2000)

Pain , Way , Suffering , Universe

“.. we [the Impressionists ] are carrying on a despairing fight & need all our forces.”

Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) American painter and printmaker

Quote c. 1879; as cited by Nancy Mowll Mathews, in Mary Cassatt: A Life, Villard Books, New York, 1994, p. 118 - ISBN 978-0-394-58497-3

Fight , Despair

“My notion about any artist is that we honor him best by reading him, by playing his music, by seeing his plays or by looking at his pictures. We don't need to fall all over ourselves with adjectives and epithets. Let's play him more.”

Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) Historian

Interview with John C. Tibbetts http://www.murphywong.net/barzuncentennial/JohnCTibbetts.htm (1986-12-04)

Music , Reading

“Keith has one of those all terrain things that will come in so handy when the world ends and we need a nine-thousand -cylinder engine to drive over those hordes of blood-thirsty mutants crawling all over the video-game landscape.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Adverbs (2006), Obviously

World , Game

“A number of social problems arose. I had been told that neither smoking nor alcoholic beverages were allowed in the [Saudi] Royal Presence. As I was the host at luncheon I raised the matter at once, and said to the interpreter that if it was the religion of His Majesty [Ibn Saud] to deprive himself of smoking and alcohol I must point out that my rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them. The King graciously accepted the position. His own cup-bearer from Mecca offered me a glass of water from its sacred well, the most delicious I had ever tasted.”

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

Discussion of an audience with Saudi King Ibn Saud at the Fayoum oasis, Egypt, on February 17, 1945; in The Second World War, Volume VI : Triumph and Tragedy (1953), Chapter 23 (Yalta: Finale), pp. 348-349.
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Life , Alcohol , Religion , Drink

“Most of our beliefs about complex organizations follow from one or the other of two distinct strategies. The closed-system strategy seeks certainty by incorporating only those variables positively associated with goal achievement and subjecting them to a monolithic control network. The open-system strategy shifts attention from goal achievement to survival and incorporates uncertainty by recognizing organizational interdependence with environment. A newer tradition enables us to conceive of the organization as an open system, indeterminate and faced with uncertainty, but subject to criteria of rationality and hence needing certainty.”

James D. Thompson (1920–1973) American sociologist

Source: Organizations in Action, 1967, p. 13 (in 2011 edition)