Quotes about news
page 80

Nikki SooHoo photo
Henri Matisse photo
George W. Bush photo

“As you serve others, you can inspire others. I’ve been inspired by the examples of many selfless servants. Winston Churchill, a leader of courage and resolve, inspired me during my Presidency—and, for that matter, in the post-presidency. Like Churchill, I now paint. Unlike Churchill, the painting isn’t worth much without the signature. In 1941, he gave a speech to the students of his old school during Britain’s most trying times in World War II. It wasn’t too long, and it is well-remembered. Prime Minister Churchill urged, 'Never give in… in nothing, great or small, large or petty. Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense'. I hope you’ll remember this advice. But there’s a lesser-known passage from that speech that I also want to share with you. 'These are not dark days. These are great days. The greatest our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race'. When Churchill uttered these words, many had lost hope in Great Britain’s chance for survival against the Nazis. Many doubted the future of freedom. Today, some doubt America’s future, and they say our best days are behind us. I say, given our strengths—one of which is a bright new generation like you—these are not dark days. These are great days.”

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

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

William Crookes photo
Washington Irving photo
Dashiell Hammett photo
Warren Farrell photo
Edward R. Murrow photo

“We cannot make good news out of bad practice.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

Response as director of the U.S. Information Agency to Senate critics who wanted him to ignore racial problems to promote a better public image abroad. As quoted in Life (7 May 1965)

Winston S. Churchill photo
Richard Feynman photo

“One of the first interesting experiences I had in this project at Princeton was meeting great men. I had never met very many great men before. But there was an evaluation committee that had to try to help us along, and help us ultimately decide which way we were going to separate the uranium. This committee had men like Compton and Tolman and Smyth and Urey and Rabi and Oppenheimer on it. I would sit in because I understood the theory of how our process of separating isotopes worked, and so they'd ask me questions and talk about it. In these discussions one man would make a point. Then Compton, for example, would explain a different point of view. He would say it should be this way, and he was perfectly right. Another guy would say, well, maybe, but there's this other possibility we have to consider against it.

So everybody is disagreeing, all around the table. I am surprised and disturbed that Compton doesn't repeat and emphasize his point. Finally at the end, Tolman, who's the chairman, would say, "Well, having heard all these arguments, I guess it's true that Compton's argument is the best of all, and now we have to go ahead."

It was such a shock to me to see that a committee of men could present a whole lot of ideas, each one thinking of a new facet, while remembering what the other fella said, so that, at the end, the decision is made as to which idea was the best -- summing it all up -- without having to say it three times. These were very great men indeed.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

from the First Annual Santa Barbara Lectures on Science and Society, University of California at Santa Barbara (1975)

John Denham photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“I will not by suppression, or by performing tricks, try to produce the impression that the ordinary Christianity in the land and the Christianity of the New Testament are alike.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

"What Do I Want?"
1850s, Attack upon Christendom (1855)

Herbert Marcuse photo
Vilfredo Pareto photo
Hans Haacke photo

“I have a particular interest in corporations that give themselves a cultural aura and are in other areas suspect. Philip Morris presents itself in New York as the lover of culture while it turns out that if you look behind the scenes, it is also a prime funder of Jesse Helms, someone who is very hostile to the arts.”

Hans Haacke (1936) conceptual political artist

Hans Haacke in: Roberta Smith "A Giant artistic Gibe at Jesse Helms," in New York Times, April 20, 1990; Republished in: The New York Times Guide to the Arts of the 20th Century: 1900-1929, (2002) p. 2929
1990s

“Silence can shatter the trivialized deity that has occupied our imaginations and provide God the canvas to begin a new work in our souls.”

The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)

Sergei Prokofiev photo

“The first was the classical line, which could be traced back to my early childhood and the Beethoven sonatas I heard my mother play. This line takes sometimes a neo-classical form (sonatas, concertos), sometimes imitates the 18th century classics (gavottes, the Classical symphony, partly the Sinfonietta). The second line, the modern trend, begins with that meeting with Taneyev when he reproached me for the “crudeness” of my harmonies. At first this took the form of a search for my own harmonic language, developing later into a search for a language in which to express powerful emotions (The Phantom, Despair, Diabolical Suggestion, Sarcasms, Scythian Suite, a few of the songs, op. 23, The Gambler, Seven, They Were Seven, the Quintet and the Second Symphony). Although this line covers harmonic language mainly, it also includes new departures in melody, orchestration and drama. The third line is toccata or the “motor” line traceable perhaps to Schumann’s Toccata which made such a powerful impression on me when I first heard it (Etudes, op. 2, Toccata, op. 11, Scherzo, op. 12, the Scherzo of the Second Concerto, the Toccata in the Fifth Concerto, and also the repetitive intensity of the melodic figures in the Scythian Suite, Pas d’acier[The Age of Steel], or passages in the Third Concerto). This line is perhaps the least important. The fourth line is lyrical; it appears first as a thoughtful and meditative mood, not always associated with the melody, or, at any rate, with the long melody (The Fairy-tale, op. 3, Dreams, Autumnal Sketch[Osenneye], Songs, op. 9, The Legend, op. 12), sometimes partly contained in the long melody (choruses on Balmont texts, beginning of the First Violin Concerto, songs to Akhmatova’s poems, Old Granny’s Tales[Tales of an Old Grandmother]). This line was not noticed until much later. For a long time I was given no credit for any lyrical gift whatsoever, and for want of encouragement it developed slowly. But as time went on I gave more and more attention to this aspect of my work. I should like to limit myself to these four “lines,” and to regard the fifth, “grotesque” line which some wish to ascribe to me, as simply a deviation from the other lines. In any case I strenuously object to the very word “grotesque” which has become hackneyed to the point of nausea. As a matter of fact the use of the French word “grotesque” in this sense is a distortion of the meaning. I would prefer my music to be described as “Scherzo-ish” in quality, or else by three words describing the various degrees of the Scherzo—whimsicality, laughter, mockery.”

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) Ukrainian & Russian Soviet pianist and composer

Page 36-37; from his fragmentary Autobiography.
Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences (1960)

Elton John photo

“Yeah I'm gonna kill myself,
Get a little headline news.
I'd like to see what the papers say
On the state of teenage blues.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

I Think I'm Going to Kill Myself
Song lyrics, Honky Château (1972)

Andrew Sullivan photo
Roberto Clemente photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Victor Villaseñor photo
Sergey Lavrov photo
Zoran Đinđić photo
Epifanio de los Santos photo

“Among the new bibliographers, Sr. Epifanio de los Santos, a young scholar with great culture, stood at the head; he possessed more than 2,000 titles, some of them were very rare.”

Epifanio de los Santos (1871–1928) Filipino politician

As quoted by Wenceslao Retana in Gregorio F. Zaide's "Epifanio de los Santos, his collection and library" (The Tribune Magazine. p. 4).
BALIW

Harry Truman photo
Miriam Makeba photo
Tom Robbins photo
Whittaker Chambers photo
Russell L. Ackoff photo
Bill de Blasio photo

“If you could remove News Corp from the last 25 years of American history, we would be in an entirely different place.”

Bill de Blasio (1961) American politician and mayor of New York City

Interview with Ben Jacobs of The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/07/bill-de-blasio-interview-trump-rupert-murdoch.

“In April of 1959, ten of this country's leading scholars forgathered on the campus of Purdue University to discuss the nature of information and the nature of decision… What interests do these men have in common?… To answer these questions it is necessary to view the changing aspect of the scientific approach to epistemology, and the striking progress which has been wrought in the very recent past. The decade from 1940 to 1950 witnessed the operation of the first stored- program digital computer. The concept of information was quantified, and mathematical theories were developed for communication (Shannon) and decision (Wald). Known mathematical techniques were applied to new and important fields, as the techniques of complex- variable theory to the analysis of feedback systems and the techniques of matrix theory to the analysis of systems under multiple linear constraints. The word "cybernetics" was coined, and with it came the realization of the many analogies between control and communication in men and in automata. New terms like "operations research" and "system engineering" were introduced; despite their occasional use by charlatans, they have signified enormous progress in the solution of exceedingly complex problems, through the application of quantitative ness and objectivity.”

Robert E. Machol (1917–1998) American systems engineer

Source: Information and Decision Processes (1960), p. vii

Francis Escudero photo

“His remains lie in state at the Mt. Carmel Church at Broadway corner 5th Street, New Manila, Quezon City until Tuesday.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2012, Statement: on the Passing of His Father Rep. Salvador H. Escudero III

Rembrandt van Rijn photo

“The Ground of Rinebrant of Rine: Take half an ounce of Expoltum burnt of Amber, one ounce of Virgin's was, half an ounce of Mastick, then take the Mastick and Expoltum, and beat them severally very fine in a Mortar; this being done, take a new earthen pot and set upon it a charcoal-fire, then shake into it the Mastick and Expoltum by degrees, stirring the Wax about till they be thoroughly mingled, then pour it forth into fair water and make a ball of it, and use it as before mentioned, but be sure you do not heat the plate too hot when you lay the ground upon it, this is the only way of Rinebrant.”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

Rembrandt's etching recipe http://remdoc.huygens.knaw.nl/#/document/remdoc/e12885, in 'The Whole Art of Drawing', Alexander Browne, London 1660, p. 106
Strauss & Van der Meulen 1979, p. 476, RD 1660/29: 'This recipe, specifically attributed to Rembrandt, for preparing the ground of a plate for etching is given by Alexander Brown in 'The Whole of Drawing'
1640 - 1670

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo
Doron Zeilberger photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“The inability of business and political leadership to rise to new heights [required by the] unprecedented situation, [familiar to us now as the Great Depression.. urged for] bold policies…bold anything is needed at this time.”

Wallace Brett Donham (1877–1954) American academic

As cited by Drew Gilpin Faust, " Harvard Business School Centennial http://www.harvard.edu/president/speech/2008/harvard-business-school-centennial," at harvard.edu, October 14, 2008.
"The Failure of Business Leadership and the Responsibility of the Universities", 1933

J. B. S. Haldane photo
Rob Enderle photo

“[The iPhone]'s clearly going to start a wave towards a new technology — as I say, I'm not convinced that Apple's going to be able to ride this wave.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

2007: Rob Enderle's take on the Apple iPhone http://youtube.com/watch?v=0AhtXAHECVo in YouTube (25 January 2007)

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Naomi Klein photo
Ann Coulter photo
Lloyd Kaufman photo
Ricky Gervais photo
Samuel Butler (poet) photo
John Theophilus Desaguliers photo
Kurt Schwitters photo
Pierre Monteux photo
Joseph Massad photo
Garry Kasparov photo

“Solving new problems is what keeps us moving forward as individuals and as a society, so don't back down.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

Part III, Chapter 13, Man Vs. Machine, p. 170
2000s, How Life Imitates Chess (2007)

Amory B. Lovins photo
Ray Lewis (American football) photo

“Remove the word black and say 'lives matter'… Stop sending mothers back home empty. You can never replace a mother's child. If we want black lives matter, let's make it matter to us. That's the new call.”

Ray Lewis (American football) (1975) former American football linebacker

As quoted in "Former NFL Player Ray Lewis: 'Let's Make Lives Matter'" https://web.archive.org/web/20150917002938/http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/former-nfl-de-ray-lewis-lets-make-lives-matter-n424971 (2015), by Khorri Atkinson, NBC News.
2010s, 2015

David Brin photo

“The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions. It often proved fatal.”

David Brin (1950) novelist, short story writer

A Contrarian Perspective on Altruism : The Dangers of First Contact (September 2002) http://www.setileague.org/iaaseti/brin.pdf, p. 22

Franz Marc photo

“I am trying to intensify my feeling for the organic rhythm in all things, trying to establish a pantheistic contact with the tremor and flow of blood in nature, in animals, in the air – trying to make it all into a picture, with new movements and with colours that reduce our old easel paintings to absurdity.”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

Quote in Marc's letter to the publisher Reinhard Piper, 1908, as cited in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, ed. Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 207
1905 - 1910

Fernand Léger photo
Robert Charles Wilson photo
Shaun Ellis photo
Woodrow Wilson photo
Arthur Frederick Bettinson photo
Terry Brooks photo
Jeanette Winterson photo

“Every new discovery in science brings with it a host of new problems, just as the invention of the automobile brought with it gas stations, roads, garages, mechanics, and a thousand other subsidiary details.”

Banesh Hoffmann (1906–1986) American mathematician and physicist

[Banesh Hoffmann, The strange story of the quantum: an account for the general reader of the growth of the ideas underlying our present atomic knowledge, Courier Dover Publications, 1959, 0486205185, 4]

Ron Paul photo
Hans von Seeckt photo

“Only in firm co-operation with a Great Russia will Germany have the chance of regaining her position as a world power…Britain and France fear the combination of the two land powers and try to prevent it with all their means—hence we have to seek it with all our strength…Whether we like or dislike the new Russia and her internal structure is quite immaterial. Our policy would have had to be the same towards a Tsarist Russia or towards a state under Kolchak or Denikin. Now we have to come to terms with Soviet Russia—we have no alternative…In Poland France seeks to gain the eastern field of attack against Germany and, together with Britain, has driven the stake which we cannot endure into our flesh, quite close to the heart of our existent a a state. Now France trembles for her Poland which a strengthened Russia threatens with destruction, and now Germany is to save her mortal enemy! Her mortal enemy, for we have none worse at this moment. Neva can Prussia-Germany concede that Bromberg, Graudenz, Thorn, (Marienburg), Posen should remain in Polish hands, and now there appears on the horizon, like a divine miracle, help for us in our deep distress. At this moment nobody should ask Germany to lift as much as a finger when disaster engulf Poland.”

Hans von Seeckt (1866–1936) German general

Memorandum (4 February 1920), quoted in F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 68.

Elia M. Ramollah photo
Gerald Ford photo
Juicy J photo
Roger Ebert photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Tom Petty photo

“We're overdue for a dream come true.
Long time, nothing new.
We're overdue for a dream come true.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Hung Up And Overdue
Lyrics, Songs and Music from "She's the One" (1996)

Will Cuppy photo
Dmitri Shostakovich photo
Nicholas Lore photo
Ravindra Prabhat photo

“If a Bloggers dies without transforming his/her knowledge to the new generation, the knowledge is meaningless. If an example if a witch could not transform her knowledge to anybody, she makes a hole where she dies.”

Ravindra Prabhat (1969) Hindi poet, scholar, journalist, novelist and short story writer

"The South Asian Bloggers community celebrated the Third Bloggers Conference on 13-14-15th Sept. 2013 at Kathmandu in Nepal ." (13 September 2013) http://www.southasiatoday.org/2013/09/the-indian-bloggers-community.html

Emily Dickinson photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Frederick Buechner photo
Emo Philips photo
Amy Tan photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“Delaware has not had the best of opportunities. You must remember that it is next to New Jersey, which is quite an obstacle in the path of progress.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Interview with the Chicago Times, Feb. 14, 1881.

“You have seen bigger horses than his thirteen and a half, perhaps fourteen hands, his nine hundred pounds. You have seen handsomer profiles than this Roman nose, slightly convex. Burrs cling to his long sweeping tail. His coat is dark and unglossed. Yet look again, while he is still, for he will not be still long. Sense the vitality in those muscles, trembling beneath the skin; see the pride in that high head, hear the haughty command to his voice. For this is a wild horse, my friend. Once he claimed the western range. Then they took his range away from him. But nothing, no one claims him. He feels the wind and the air with his nose, with his ears, with his very soul, and what he feels is good. He tosses his head, once, quickly, and behind him his harem of six mares trot up to join him, and behind them, a yearling colt, a filly and two stork-legged foals. Coats dusty and chewed, tails spiked with bits of the desert, sage and nettle and leftover pine needles from winter climbs down from timberland. The Barb-nosed stallion led his family down to the waterhole. Not Barb from barbed wire, though perhaps the chewed skin was from barbed wire, but Barb from the Spanish horses from which he descended, brought to the New World over four hundred years ago, from the Barbary states of North Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Fez, Tripoli. Indians stole them from the Spaniards; the Barbs stole themselves free from the Indians. Running wild, a few still run free.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From Running Wild (1973) by Hano, p. 10
Other Topics

Heather Langenkamp photo
Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo

“Daily news and sugar confuse our system in the same manner.”

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012), p. 127

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo

“One has to do something new in order to see something new.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

J 1770
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook J (1789)