Quotes about news
page 100

John Nash photo
Madonna photo

“This is a historical evening. This is fucking important evening… We are lucky to be sharing it with each other. This is the beginning of a whole new world. Open your fucking head!”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Don’t cry for her, Vegas, Las Vegas Sun, 2008-11-07 http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/nov/07/dont-cry-her-vegas/,
Madonna Onstage in San Diego on election night, congratulated President-elect Barack Obama before a giant projected backdrop of an Obama campaign poster that read, “WE WON.” It ended with Madonna getting the crowd to chant “We are one!”

Richard Feynman photo
Will Cuppy photo

“During the Cretaceous Period many of the inland seas dried up, leaving the Plesiosaurs stranded without any fish. Just about that time Mother Nature scrapped the whole Age of Reptiles and called for a new deal. And you can see what she got.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

Footnote: Here we see the working of another Law of Nature: No water, no fish.
The Plesiosaur
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Neal Stephenson photo
Jane Austen photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo

“News that is sufficiently bad somehow carries its own guarantee of truth. Only good reports need confirmation.”

Breaking Strain, p. 170
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Ulysses S. Grant photo

“The Mexicans are a good people. They live on little and work hard. They suffer from the influence of the Church, which, while I was in Mexico at least, was as bad as could be. The Mexicans were good soldiers, but badly commanded. The country is rich, and if the people could be assured a good government, they would prosper. See what we have made of Texas and California — empires. There are the same materials for new empires in Mexico. I have always had a deep interest in Mexico and her people, and have always wished them well. I suppose the fact that I served there as a young man, and the impressions the country made upon my young mind, have a good deal to do with this. When I was in London, talking with Lord Beaconsfield, he spoke of Mexico. He said he wished to heaven we had taken the country, that England would not like anything better than to see the United States annex it. I suppose that will be the future of the country. Now that slavery is out of the way there could be no better future for Mexico than absorption in the United States. But it would have to come, as San Domingo tried to come, by the free will of the people. I would not fire a gun to annex territory. I consider it too great a privilege to belong to the United States for us to go around gunning for new territories. Then the question of annexation means the question of suffrage, and that becomes more and more serious every day with us. That is one of the grave problems of our future.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

On Mexicans and Mexico's future, pp. 448–449 https://archive.org/details/aroundworldgrant02younuoft/page/n4
1870s, Around the World with General Grant (1879)

Samuel Johnson photo
Brian W. Kernighan photo

“Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs.”

Brian W. Kernighan (1942) Canadian computer scientist

Programming Pearls http://www.bowdoin.edu/~ltoma/teaching/cs340/spring05/coursestuff/Bentley_BumperSticker.pdf. CACM. 28 (9). September 1985

Robert Greene photo
Robert Greene photo
Robert Greene photo
Robert Greene photo
Teal Swan photo
Teal Swan photo
Teal Swan photo
Edsger W. Dijkstra photo

“[Though computer science is a fairly new discipline, it is predominantly based on the Cartesian world view. As Edsgar W. Dijkstra has pointed out] A scientific discipline emerges with the - usually rather slow!”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

discovery of which aspects can be meaningfully 'studied in isolation for the sake of their own consistency.
Dijkstra (1982) as cited in: Douglas Schuler, Douglas Schuler Jonathan Jacky (1989) Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing, 1987. Vol 1, p. 84.
1980s

Ernest Rutherford photo
John Stuart Mill photo
Richard Dawkins photo

“Don’t ever be lazy enough, defeatist enough, cowardly enough to say “I don't understand it so it must be a miracle - it must be supernatural - God did it”. Say instead, that it’s a puzzle, it’s strange, it’s a challenge that we should rise to. Whether we rise to the challenge by questioning the truth of the observation, or by expanding our science in new and exciting directions - the proper and brave response to any such challenge is to tackle it head-on. And until we've found a proper answer to the mystery, it's perfectly ok simply to say “this is something we don't yet understand - but we're working on it.””

It's the only honest thing to do. Miracles, magic and myths, they can be fun. Everybody likes a good story. Myths are fun, as long as you don't confuse them with the truth. The real truth has a magic of its own. The truth is more magical, in the best and most exciting sense of the word, than any myth or made-up mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic - the magic of reality.
Duke University, 01/03/2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYcOoqxuroI&t=54m51s
The Magic Of Reality (2012)

Rufus Choate photo

“The courage of New England was the "courage of conscience."”

Rufus Choate (1799–1859) American politician

It did not rise to that insane and awful passion, the love of war for itself.
Address at Ipswich Centennial (1834).

Paul A. Samuelson photo
Joseph Goebbels photo
Steve Jobs photo

“If you have a chance to go to New York I really encourage to go visit the store. This is one of the fifty-seven we now have.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

2000s, WWDC 2006

Steve Jobs photo
Steve Jobs photo
Peter Medawar photo

“No virus is known to do good: it has been well said that a virus is "a piece of bad news wrapped up in protein."”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

(with Jean Medawar) Aristotle to Zoos: A Philosophical Dictionary of Biology, 1983, p. 275.
1980s

Simone de Beauvoir photo
Simone de Beauvoir photo
William D. Leahy photo
Steven Crowder photo
Steven Crowder photo
Kim Il-sung photo

“The revolution itself originates from a dream of the future or from the craving for a new life.”

Kim Il-sung (1912–1994) President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

With the century, vol. 8

Kim Il-sung photo

“A free and peaceful new world without exploitation and oppression was the age-long dream and ideal of humanity”

Kim Il-sung (1912–1994) President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

With the century, vol. 3

James McBride (writer) photo
Bernie Sanders photo

“I learnt a lot about democracy in the schoolyards of Brooklyn, New York.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Bernie from Brooklyn: A Conversation with Mark Ruffalo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqNRReOXmA (April 16, 2016)
2010s, 2016

Joseph Goebbels photo

“What we demand is new, decisive, and radical, revolutionary in the truest sense of the word.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Joseph Goebbels photo
Benito Mussolini photo

“With each new discovery of chemistry, physics, biology, the anthropological sciences, of the practical application of sound principles, dogma collapses. It is a part of that old edifice of religion which crumbles and falls in ruins.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

1900s, God Does Not Exist (1904)

Jason Reynolds photo
Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo
Thomas Hylland Eriksen photo

“I simply couldn't believe what I was seeing...All the doctors and nurses who saw yesterday's news were furious...Zhang Wenkang is ... abandoning even his most basic standards of integrity as a doctor.”

Jiang Yanyong (1931–2023) Chinese physician

On April 3, 2003, Respond for China Health Minister Zhang Wenkang report on national television a mere 12 cases of SARS. Outraged Surgeon Forces China To Swallow a Dose of the Truth https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB105097464285708600

Robert Skidelsky photo

“All epoch-defining events are the result of conjunctures - the correlation of normally unconnected happenings which jolts humanity out of its existing rut and sets it on a new course.”

Robert Skidelsky (1939) Economist and author

Source: John Maynard Keynes: The Return of the Master (2009), Ch. 1 : What Went Wrong?

Marianne Williamson photo
Marianne Williamson photo
Marianne Williamson photo

“There comes a time, not too long into the journey to God, when the realization that the world could work beautifully if we would give it the chance, begins to excite us. It becomes our new motivation.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles" (1992), Ch. 7 : Work, §9 : Sales to Service

Marianne Williamson photo
Raewyn Connell photo
Jean-François Revel photo

“Today in America—the child of European imperialism—a new revolution is rising. It is the revolution of our time... and offers the only possible escape for mankind today.”

Jean-François Revel (1924–2006) French writer and philosopher

Without Marx or Jesus; the new American Revolution has begun (1971) quoted in The Aquarian Conspiracy, by Marilyn Ferguson, Chapter 5 (1980)
1970s

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo

“If a new prototype of society is to emerge, rather than a coup d'etat, dialogue and debate must occur at the highest levels.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Five, The American Matrix for Transformation

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Alexander Calder photo

“It is a matter of harmonizing these movements, thus arriving at a new possibility for beauty.”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

1930s, It Shall Move - On Mobile Sculptures (1932)

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Jacinda Ardern photo
Jacinda Ardern photo
Jacinda Ardern photo

“No, not necessarily. Not necessarily. I think there’s nothing wrong from saying that, actually, there are interventions that are required and that we should be making sure that we are focused on generating well-being for New Zealanders.”

Jacinda Ardern (1980) Prime Minister of New Zealand

On if she thinks that economic nationalism has negative connotations.
Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017

“I stood asking news of the ruins concerning their lovely habitants;
but what avail my questions to dreary rocks, who answer them only by their echo?”

Labīd (560–661) Sahabah and poet

Translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, p. 42 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up
Couplets

“DESOLATE are the mansions of the fair, the stations in Minia, where they rested, and those where they fixed their abodes! Wild are the hills of Goul, and deserted is the summit of Rijaam.
The canals of Rayaan are destroyed: the remains of them are laid bare and smoothed by the floods, like characters engraved on the solid rocks.
Dear ruins! Many a year has been closed, many a month, holy and unhallowed, has elapsed, since I exchanged tender vows with their fair inhabitants!
The rainy constellations of spring have made their hills green and luxuriant: the drops from the thunder-clouds have drenched them with profuse as well as with gentle showers:
Showers, from every nightly cloud, from every cloud veiling the horizon at day-break, and from every evening cloud, responsive with hoarse murmurs.
Here the wild eringo-plants raise their tops: here the antelopes bring forth their young, by the sides of the valley: and here the ostriches drop their eggs.
The large-eyed wild-cows lie suckling their young, a few days old—their young, who will soon become a herd on the plain.
The torrents have cleared the rubbish, and disclosed the traces of habitations, as the reeds of a writer restore effaced letters in a book;
Or as the black dust, sprinkled over the varied marks on a fair hand, brings to view with a brighter tint the blue stains of woad.
I stood asking news of the ruins concerning their lovely habitants; but what avail my questions to dreary rocks, who answer them only by their echo?”

Labīd (560–661) Sahabah and poet

Translated by C. J. Lyall, quoted in Arabian Poetry, p. 41-42. First Stanza, lines 1-10 https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n127/mode/2up
The Poem of Labīd (translated by C. J. Lyall in 1881)

Benjamin Creme photo
Benjamin Creme photo
T.S. Eliot photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“My administration has done a job on really working across government and with the private sector, and it’s been incredible. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, I have to say. Unfortunately, the end result of the group we’re fighting — which are hundreds of billions and trillions of germs, or whatever you want to call them — they are bad news. This virus is bad news and it moves quickly, and it spreads as easily as anything anyone has ever seen.”

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

As quoted in Remarks by President Trump in a Meeting with Supply Chain Distributors on COVID-19 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-meeting-supply-chain-distributors-covid-19/ (March 29, 2020), whitehouse.gov.
2020s, 2020, March

Umar II photo
Max Haiven photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo

“If we respond to the message of pain or disease, the demand for adaptation, we can break through to a new level of wellness.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Eight, Healing Ourselves

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Naomi Klein photo

“Instead of rescuing the dirty industries of the last century, we should be boosting the clean ones that will lead us into safety in the coming century (Green New Deal). If there is one thing history teaches us, it's that moments of shock are profoundly volatile. We either lose a whole lot of ground, get fleeced by elites, and pay the price for decades, or we win progressive victories that seemed impossible just a few weeks earlier. This is no time to lose our nerve.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

Quoted in 'We Know This Script': Naomi Klein Warns of 'Coronavirus Capitalism' in New Video Detailing Battle Before Us https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/17/we-know-script-naomi-klein-warns-coronavirus-capitalism-new-video-detailing-battle, by Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, (17 March 2020)

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo

“I started with nothing and built something, and one day it will finish, and something new will come out of it.”

Brunello Cucinelli (1953) Italian entrepreneur and philanthropist

Source: CEO Talk | Brunello Cucinelli, Founder and Chief Executive https://www.businessoffashion.com/amp/articles/ceo-talk/ceo-talk-brunello-cucinelli-founder-chief-executive-brunello-cucinelli Imran Amed, Business of Fashion, 1 July 2014

Marilyn Ferguson photo