Quotes about news
page 39

P.G. Wodehouse photo
Paul Krugman photo

“Many liberals have changed their views in response to new evidence. It’s an interesting experience; conservatives should try it some time.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

[Paul Krugman, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/opinion/paul-krugman-liberals-and-wages.html, Liberals and Wages, New York Times, 17 July 2015, 17 July 2015]
The New York Times Columns

The Mother photo
H.L. Mencken photo
Vanna Bonta photo

“Quantum fiction is literature that embodies the new physical or quantum universe.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta Talks About Quantum fiction: Author Interview (2007)

Edmund Burke photo

“Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling — it never forgives the preaching of a new gospel.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Actually from Frederic Harrison's essay "Ruskin as Prophet", in his Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and Other Literary Estimates (1899).
Misattributed

Will Eisner photo
Don Soderquist photo

“The way a new leader acts early in his or her job will show what kind of person he or she is. During that time frame, everyone develops their own long-lasting perception. And those perceptions—hard to change—determine how they respond to the new leadership long into the future.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ Live Learn Lead to Make a Difference https://books.google.com/books?id=s0q7mZf9oDkC&lpg=pg=PP1&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2006 p. 154.
On Building Trust

Cotton Mather photo
Jayant Narlikar photo
Andy Warhol photo
Samuel C. Florman photo
Hendrik Lorentz photo

“I cannot refrain… from expressing my surprise that, according to the report in The Times there should be so much complaint about the difficulty of understanding the new theory. It is evident that Einstein's little book "About the Special and the General Theory of Relativity in Plain Terms," did not find its way into England during wartime. Any one reading it will, in my opinion, come to the conclusion that the basic ideas of the theory are really clear and simple; it is only to be regretted that it was impossible to avoid clothing them in pretty involved mathematical terms, but we must not worry about that. …
The Newtonian theory remains in its full value as the first great step, without which one cannot imagine the development of astronomy and without which the second step, that has now been made, would hardly have been possible. It remains, moreover, as the first, and in most cases, sufficient, approximation. It is true that, according to Einstein's theory, because it leaves us entirely free as to the way in which we wish to represent the phenomena, we can imagine an idea of the solar system in which the planets follow paths of peculiar form and the rays of light shine along sharply bent lines—think of a twisted and distorted planetarium—but in every case where we apply it to concrete questions we shall so arrange it that the planets describe almost exact ellipses and the rays of light almost straight lines.
It is not necessary to give up entirely even the ether. …according to the Einstein theory, gravitation itself does not spread instantaneously, but with a velocity that at the first estimate may be compared with that of light. …In my opinion it is not impossible that in the future this road, indeed abandoned at present, will once more be followed with good results, if only because it can lead to the thinking out of new experimental tests. Einstein's theory need not keep us from so doing; only the ideas about the ether must accord with it.”

Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) Dutch physicist

Theory of Relativity: A Concise Statement (1920)

Leo Tolstoy photo

“What are wanted for the Indian as for the Englishman, the Frenchman, the German, and the Russian, are not Constitutions and Revolutions, nor all sorts of Conferences and Congresses, nor the many ingenious devices for submarine navigation and aerial navigation, nor powerful explosives, nor all sorts of conveniences to add to the enjoyment of the rich, ruling classes; nor new schools and universities with innumerable faculties of science, nor an augmentation of papers and books, nor gramophones and cinematographs, nor those childish and for the most part corrupt stupidities termed art — but one thing only is needful: the knowledge of the simple and clear truth which finds place in every soul that is not stupefied by religious and scientific superstitions — the truth that for our life one law is valid — the law of love, which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well as to all mankind. Free your minds from those overgrown, mountainous imbecilities which hinder your recognition of it, and at once the truth will emerge from amid the pseudo-religious nonsense that has been smothering it: the indubitable, eternal truth inherent in man, which is one and the same in all the great religions of the world. It will in due time emerge and make its way to general recognition, and the nonsense that has obscured it will disappear of itself, and with it will go the evil from which humanity now suffers.”

A Letter to a Hindu (1908)

Ernest Flagg photo
Du Fu photo
Karen Armstrong photo
Ben Croshaw photo

“The zip on my wallet broke, sealing the money inside. How am I supposed to buy a new wallet?”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

29 January 2010
Twitter

Oliver Sacks photo
Jackie DeShannon photo

“She'll turn her music on you
You won't have to think twice
She's pure as New York snow
She's got Bette Davis eyes”

Jackie DeShannon (1941) American singer-songwriter

"Bette Davis Eyes" (1975); written with Donna Weiss

Dorothy Parker photo

“The musical comedies of the month are She’s a Good Fellow and The Lady in Red, both of which owe their book and lyrics to Anne Caldwell—evidently a native of New York, judged by the casualness with which she rhymes “teacher” and “reach a.””

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25758762M/Dorothy_Parker_Complete_Broadway_1918-1923, Chapter 2: 1919, p. 82

Donald J. Trump photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo
Francis Escudero photo
Jack McDevitt photo

“Maybe the universe doesn’t approve of places like New York.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, The Engines of God (1994), Chapter 30 (p. 408)

Ragnar Frisch photo

“Two important features in the modern development of economics are the application of mathematics to abstract economic reasoning… and the attempt at placing economics on a numerical and experimental basis by an intensive study of economic statistics.
Both these developments have a common characteristic: they emphasize the quantitative character of economics. This quantitative movement in our estimation is one of the most promising developments in modern economics. We also consider it important that the two aspects of the quantitative method referred to should be furthered, developed, and studied jointly as two integrating parts of economics.
We therefore venture to propose the establishment of an international periodical devoted to the advancement of the quantitative study of economic phenomena, and especially to the development of a closer relation between pure economics and economic statistics.
We believe that the scope of the new journal would be happily suggested if it is called "Oekonometrika."”

Ragnar Frisch (1895–1973) Norwegian economist

Accordingly, the quantitative study of economic phenomena here considered may be termed econometrics.
Frisch (1927) as quoted in Divisia 1953, pp.24-25; Cited in: Bjerkholt, Olav. " Ragnar Frisch and the foundation of the Econometric Society and Econometrica http://www.ssb.no/a/histstat/doc/doc_199509.pdf." ECONOMETRIC SOCIETY MONOGRAPHS 31 (1998): 26-57.
Lead paragraph of a memorandum on the importance of establishing the journal "Oekonometrika"
1920

“The ploughman ploughs, the fisherman dreams of fish;
Aloft, the sailor, through a world of ropes
Guides tangled meditations, feverish
With memories of girls forsaken, hopes
Of brief reunions, new discoveries,
Past rum consumed, rum promised, rum potential.”

Michael Hamburger (1924–2007) British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic

Lines On Brueghel's "Icarus" http://www.themediadrome.com/content/poetry/hamburger_lines_on_icarus.htm

Lenny Bruce photo

“If I get busted in New York, the freest city in the world, that will be the end of my career.”

Lenny Bruce (1925–1966) comedian and social critic

Lenny Bruce http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3345229.stm

“Jimmy Carter Calls Condi Rice a Liar … Jimmy Carter continues to plumb new depths of disgraceful behavior: Carter says Secretary Rice ‘not telling truth’.”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

April 23, 2008 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/29712_Jimmy_Carter_Calls_Condi_Rice_a_Liar&only

Tam Dalyell photo

“Under the new Bill, shall I be able to vote on many matters in relation to West Bromwich but not West Lothian?”

Tam Dalyell (1932–2017) Scottish politician

In House of Commons, 3 November 1977, as reorted in Hansard

Theo van Doesburg photo
Sarah Orne Jewett photo
Phil Ochs photo

“I write all my own songs and they are just simple melodies with a lot of lyrics. They usually have to do with current events and what is going on in the news. You can call them topical songs, songs about the news, and then developing into more philosophical songs later.”

Phil Ochs (1940–1976) American protest singer and songwriter

Testimony http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Chicago7/ochs.html at the Chicago Seven trial (11 December 1969)

Ralph Ellison photo

“I remember one clear example of the problem of communicating what is to be learned. You may have heard of or gone through a similar experience with a student or your child. Years ago, the child of a friend whom I was visiting arrived home from his day at school, all excited about something he had learned. He was in the first grade and his teacher had started the class on reading lessons. The child, Gary, announced that he had learned a new word. "That's great, Gary," his mother said. "What is it?" He thought for a moment, then said, "I'll write it down for you." On a little chalkboard the child carefully printed, HOUSE. "That's fine, Gary," his mother said. "What does it say?" He looked at the word, then at his mother and said matter-of-factly, "I don't know."The child apparently had learned what the word looked like — he had learned the visual shape of the word perfectly. The teacher, however, was teaching another aspect of reading — what words mean, what words stand for or symbolize. As often happens, what the teacher had taught and what Gary had learned were strangely incongruent.As it turned out, my friend's son always learned visual material best and fastest, a mode of learning consistently preferred by a number of students. Unfortunately, the school world is mainly a verbal, symbolic world, and learners like Gary must adjust, that is, put aside their best way of learning and learn the way the school decrees. My friend's child, fortunately, was able to make this change, but how many other students are lost along the way?”

Betty Edwards (1926) American artist

Source: The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (1979), p.237

John Hicks photo
Joe Biden photo

“The standard of judgment is no longer results but the flickering image of seriousness, skillfully crafted to squeeze into 30 seconds on the nightly news. In this world, emotion has become suspect - the accepted style is smooth, antiseptic and passionless.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

On the national debate, Speech http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/10/us/biden-joins-campaign-for-the-presidency.html announcing entry into 1988 presidential race, Wilmington, Delaware (June 10, 1987)
1980s

Melanie Phillips photo
Carole King photo
James Freeman Clarke photo
Jimmy Durante photo
Marvin Minsky photo

“Old answers never perfectly suit new questions, except in the most formal, logical circumstances.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

K-Linesː A Theory of Memory (1980)

Gordon B. Hinckley photo
Giorgio Morandi photo

“If you only knew…. how much I want to work… I have some new ideas that I would like to try out. [a few days before Monrandi's death in 1964]”

Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) Italian painter

a remark to Roberto Longhi, in 1964; as quoted in 'Morandi 1894 – 1964', published by Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, ed: M. C. Bandera & R. Miracco - 2008; p. 338
1945 - 1964

Ali Al-Wardi photo
Richard Nixon photo

“Nowdays, If a news report does not tie up loose ends as neatly as 'The A Team', it is considered a flop.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

From In The Arena (1990)
1990s

Carlo Beenakker photo
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi photo
Nikolai Bukharin photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“The very first thing the President did was to show me the new Presidential Seal, which he had just redesigned. He explained, 'The seal has to go everywhere the President goes. It must be displayed upon the lectern when he speaks. The eagle used to face the arrows but I have re-designed it so that it now faces the olive branches … what do you think?' I said, 'Mr. President, with the greatest respect, I would prefer the American eagle's neck to be on a swivel so that it could face the olive branches or the arrows, as the occasion might demand.”

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

An exchange (March 4, 1946) with Harry S. Truman aboard the Presidential train in Washington, D.C.'s Union Station before journeying to Fulton, Missouri; as quoted in "The Genius and Wit of Winston Churchill" http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=825 by Robin Lawson.
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Martin Amis photo
Jacoba van Heemskerck photo

“.. I am so often showing my work in Germany that I belong to the German moderns... I openly want to confess you that I don't value the new painting in my home country very much. That is why I don't have a lot of acquaintances among the painters. Everything here is so little progressive. People's life is to easy here. It is very difficult to keep wide-awake since all are sleeping here. I feel much more at home in Germany.”

Jacoba van Heemskerck (1876–1923) Dutch painter

translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in Dutch / citaat van Jacoba van Heemskerck, in het Nederlands vertaald: ..ik ben zo vaak met mijn werk in Duitsland dat ik helemaal tot de Duitse modernen behoor.. .Ik wil u openlijk bekennen dat ik de nieuwe schilderkunst in mijn vaderland niet erg hoog aansla. Daarom heb ik ook niet erg veel kennissen onder de schilders. Alles is hier zo weinig vooruitstrevend. De mensen herbben het veel te goed. Het is erg moeilijk wakker te blijven aangezien allen hier slapen. In Duitsland voel ik me veel meer thuis.
Quote of Jacoba van Heemskerck, in a letter of June 1921 to prof de:Hans Hildebrandt, Stuttgart Germany; as cited in Jacoba van Heemskerck van Beest, 1876 – 1923: schilderes uit roeping, A. H. Huussen jr. (ed. Marleen Blokhuis), (ISBN: 90-400-9064-5Waanders, Zwolle, 2005, p. 179
1920's

Sri Chinmoy photo

“When the power of love replaces the love of power, man will have a new name: God.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

January 20
Variants: My books, they all have only one message: the heart's Power Of Love must replace the mind's Love Of Power. If I have the Power Of Love, then I shall claim the whole World as my own … World Peace can be achieved when the Power Of Love replaces the Love Of Power.
Cited to Chinmoy's book My Heart Shall Give A Oneness-Feast (1993)
In The Forbes Book of Business Quotations (1997) edited by Edward C. Goodman and Ted Goodman, p. 639 a similar statement has become attributed to William Ewart Gladstone, and is also cited in "The National Elementary School Principal" Vol 28 published in 1948: "We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace." A similar statement has also become attributed to Jimi Hendrix, though he could have been quoting or paraphrasing Chinmoy, or conceivably Gladstone: "When the power of love overcomes love of power the world will know peace."
Meditations: Food For The Soul (1970)
Variant: When the power of love divinely replaces the love of power, man will have a new name: God. Source: Sri Chinmoy (1971): My rose petals: the master's extemporaneous talks in Europe, Sri Chinmoy Centre, p. 31. Google Books link http://books.google.pt/books?id=I2pRAAAAYAAJ&q=%22+love+divinely+replaces+%22&dq=%22+love+divinely+replaces+%22&hl=pt-PT&sa=X&ei=fNb8UrPVGsTIhAeS54H4Dw&redir_esc=y.

Benito Mussolini photo

“The struggle between the two worlds [Fascism and Democracy] can permit no compromises. The new cycle which begins with the ninth year of the Fascist regime places the alternative in even greater relief — either we or they, either their ideas or ours, either our State or theirs!”

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

"Fundamentals of critical argumentation" (2005) by Douglas Walton, p. 243
Undated

Stowe Boyd photo
Eric R. Kandel photo
Francis Bacon photo
Nicholas Murray Butler photo
Fredric Jameson photo
C.K. Prahalad photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Jeremy Rifkin photo
Plutarch photo

“When Philip had news brought him of divers and eminent successes in one day, "O Fortune!" said he, "for all these so great kindnesses do me some small mischief."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

34 Philip
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Leonid Brezhnev photo
Logan Pearsall Smith photo

“The disconcerting fact may first be pointed out that if you write badly about good writing, however profound may be your convictions or emphatic your expression of them, your style has a tiresome trick (as a wit once pointed out) of whispering: ‘Don’t listen!’ in your readers’ ears. And it is possible also to suggest that the promulgation of new-fangled aesthetic dogmas in unwieldy sentences may be accounted for—not perhaps unspitefully—by a certain deficiency in aesthetic sensibility; as being due to a lack of that delicate, unreasoned, prompt delight in all the varied and subtle manifestations in which beauty may enchant us.
Or, if the controversy is to be carried further; and if, to place it on a more modern basis, we adopt the materialistic method of interpreting aesthetic phenomena now in fashion, may we not find reason to believe that the antagonism between journalist critics and the fine writers they disapprove of is due in its ultimate analysis to what we may designate as economic causes? Are not the authors who earn their livings by their pens, and those who, by what some regard as a social injustice, have been more or less freed from this necessity—are not these two classes of authors in a sort of natural opposition to each other? He who writes at his leisure, with the desire to master his difficult art, can hardly help envying the profits of money-making authors.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

criticizing the Cambridge School of criticism, e.g. John Middleton Murry and Herbert Read, “Fine Writing,” pp. 306-307
Reperusals and Recollections (1936)

Ron Paul photo
Michel Foucault photo
Alexander H. Stephens photo

“Again, the subject of internal improvements, under the power of Congress to regulate commerce, is put at rest under our system. The power, claimed by construction under the old constitution, was at least a doubtful one; it rested solely upon construction. We of the South, generally apart from considerations of constitutional principles, opposed its exercise upon grounds of its inexpediency and injustice. Notwithstanding this opposition, millions of money, from the common treasury had been drawn for such purposes. Our opposition sprang from no hostility to commerce, or to all necessary aids for facilitating it. With us it was simply a question upon whom the burden should fall. In Georgia, for instance, we have done as much for the cause of internal improvements as any other portion of the country, according to population and means. We have stretched out lines of railroads from the seaboard to the mountains; dug down the hills, and filled up the valleys at a cost of not less than $25,000,000. All this was done to open an outlet for our products of the interior, and those to the west of us, to reach the marts of the world. No State was in greater need of such facilities than Georgia, but we did not ask that these works should be made by appropriations out of the common treasury. The cost of the grading, the superstructure, and the equipment of our roads was borne by those who had entered into the enterprise. Nay, more not only the cost of the iron no small item in the aggregate cost was borne in the same way, but we were compelled to pay into the common treasury several millions of dollars for the privilege of importing the iron, after the price was paid for it abroad. What justice was there in taking this money, which our people paid into the common treasury on the importation of our iron, and applying it to the improvement of rivers and harbors elsewhere? The true principle is to subject the commerce of every locality, to whatever burdens may be necessary to facilitate it. If Charleston harbor needs improvement, let the commerce of Charleston bear the burden. If the mouth of the Savannah river has to be cleared out, let the sea-going navigation which is benefited by it, bear the burden. So with the mouths of the Alabama and Mississippi river. Just as the products of the interior, our cotton, wheat, corn, and other articles, have to bear the necessary rates of freight over our railroads to reach the seas. This is again the broad principle of perfect equality and justice, and it is especially set forth and established in our new constitution.”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

The Cornerstone Speech (1861)

George Carlin photo
Dora Russell photo
Henry Adams photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“If a work of art is to explore new environments, it is not to be regarded as a blueprint but rather as a form of action-painting.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

To Wilfred Watson, October 6 1965. Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987), p. 325
1960s

Francis Escudero photo
Ray Comfort photo
Robert Graves photo

“My merry, merry, merry roundelay
Concludes with Cupid’s curse:
They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods, they change for worse!”

George Peele (1556–1596) English translator and poet

Cupid's Curse, Lines 12-13 (date uncertain), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

David Lloyd George photo
Norman Angell photo
Joseph Alois Schumpeter photo
Henri Poincaré photo
Charles Taze Russell photo
Gary Johnson photo
Philippe Starck photo
P. W. Botha photo

“The Republic of South Africa has a new formula under the National Party's leadership: black nations can get freedom without firing shots or revolution.”

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

As prime minister, Graaff-Reinet, 26 May 1984, as cited in PW Botha in his own words, Pieter-Dirk Uys, 1987, p. 35

Douglas Coupland photo
James Comey photo
Patrick Stump photo
Noam Chomsky photo
Chris Rea photo
Newton Lee photo
Sri Aurobindo photo
Samuel Butler photo
George W. Bush photo
Nicholas Serota photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Andy Warhol photo