Quotes about nobody (1995 quotes, page 19)

“Anarchy had been a word of fear in many countries for a long time, nowhere more so than in this one; nothing in that time, not even the word "Communism," struck such terror, anger, and hatred into the popular mind; and nobody seemed to understand exactly what Anarchy as a political idea meant any more than they understood Communism, which has muddied the waters to the point that it sometimes calls itself Socialism, at other times Democracy, or even in its present condition, the Republic.”

Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist

The Never-Ending Wrong (1977)
Context: Anarchy had been a word of fear in many countries for a long time, nowhere more so than in this one; nothing in that time, not even the word "Communism," struck such terror, anger, and hatred into the popular mind; and nobody seemed to understand exactly what Anarchy as a political idea meant any more than they understood Communism, which has muddied the waters to the point that it sometimes calls itself Socialism, at other times Democracy, or even in its present condition, the Republic. Fascism, Nazism, new names for very ancient evil forms of government — tyranny and dictatorship — came into fashion almost at the same time with Communism; at least the aims of those two were clear enough; at least their leaders made no attempt to deceive anyone as to their intentions. But Anarchy had been here all the nineteenth century, with its sinister offspring Nihilism, and it is a simple truth that the human mind can face better the most oppressive government, the most rigid restrictions, than the awful prospect of a lawless, frontierless world. Freedom is a dangerous intoxicant and very few people can tolerate it in any quantity; it brings out the old raiding, oppressing, murderous instincts; the rage for revenge, for power, the lust for bloodshed. The longing for freedom takes the form of crushing the enemy — there is always the enemy! — into the earth; and where and who is the enemy if there is no visible establishment to attack, to destroy with blood and fire? Remember all that oratory when freedom is threatened again. Freedom, remember, is not the same as liberty.

Fear , Democracy , Communication , Idea

“I'd just love to see a great love story, and nobody makes them anymore.”

Madeleine Stowe (1958) American actress

Interview appearing at reel.com (10 July 1999)
Context: I'd just love to see a great love story, and nobody makes them anymore. You have great actresses like Cate Blanchett — she's fabulous in Pushing Tin and Elizabeth — and you don't use them.

Love

“Yes, there was Edgar, whom I starved and hunted until I was tired of it: then I chased him up a back alley one night, and knocked out those annoying brains of his. And there was Walt, whom I chivvied and battered from place to place, and made a paralytic of him: and him, too, I labelled offensive and lewd and lascivious and indecent. Then later there was Mark, whom I frightened into disguising himself in a clown's suit, so that nobody might suspect him to be a maker of literature: indeed, I frightened him so that he hid away the greater part of what he had made until after he was dead, and I could not get at him. That was a disgusting trick to play on me, I consider.”

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author

The Judging of Jurgen (1920)
Context: In Philistia to make literature and to make trouble for yourself are synonyms,… the tumblebug explained. — I know, for already we of Philistia have been pestered by three of these makers of literature. Yes, there was Edgar, whom I starved and hunted until I was tired of it: then I chased him up a back alley one night, and knocked out those annoying brains of his. And there was Walt, whom I chivvied and battered from place to place, and made a paralytic of him: and him, too, I labelled offensive and lewd and lascivious and indecent. Then later there was Mark, whom I frightened into disguising himself in a clown's suit, so that nobody might suspect him to be a maker of literature: indeed, I frightened him so that he hid away the greater part of what he had made until after he was dead, and I could not get at him. That was a disgusting trick to play on me, I consider. Still, these are the only three detected makers of literature that have ever infested Philistia, thanks be to goodness and my vigilance, but for both of which we might have been no more free from makers of literature than are the other countries.…

Literature , Parting , Night , Dead

“Nobody tries to diminish the Civil Rights movement by saying they were middle class.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

The Humanist interview (2012)
Context: If you think about Martin Luther King and others in the leadership of the Civil Rights movement, they were all college-educated, middle class people. Nobody tries to diminish the Civil Rights movement by saying they were middle class.
It’s true that the National Organization for Women in its early years was white middle class. But once it was joined by younger women from civil rights groups like SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) it changed profoundly. In any case, my life’s ambition is to make white women as smart as black women. Because the group of women who still vote against their own self-interest are white married women.

“To all this, someone is sure to object that life ought to subject itself to reason, to which we will reply that nobody ought to do what he is unable to do, and life cannot subject itself to reason.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VI : In the Depths of the Abyss
Context: To all this, someone is sure to object that life ought to subject itself to reason, to which we will reply that nobody ought to do what he is unable to do, and life cannot subject itself to reason. "Ought, therefore can," some Kantian will retort. To which we shall demur: "Cannot, therefore ought not." And life cannot submit itself to reason, because the end of life is living and not understanding.

Life

“Inside me I'm screaming, nobody pays any attention.”

Dalton Trumbo book Johnny Got His Gun

Johnny Got His Gun (1938)
Context: Inside me I'm screaming, nobody pays any attention. If I had arms, I could kill myself. If I had legs, I could run away. If I had a voice, I could talk and be some kind of company for myself. I could yell for help, but nobody would help me.

“Unless you’re talking about some incredibly rigid Victorian family, there is nobody that could be said to be the leader of the family; everybody has their own function. And it seems to me that anarchy is the state that most naturally obtains when you’re talking about ordinary human beings living their lives in a natural way.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

Alan Moore on Anarchism (2009)
Context: Unless you’re talking about some incredibly rigid Victorian family, there is nobody that could be said to be the leader of the family; everybody has their own function. And it seems to me that anarchy is the state that most naturally obtains when you’re talking about ordinary human beings living their lives in a natural way. It’s only when you get these fairly alien structures of order that are represented by our major political schools of thought, that you start to get these terrible problems arising—problems regarding our status within the hierarchy, the uncertainties and insecurities that are the result of that. You get these jealousies, these power struggles, which by and large, don’t really afflict the rest of the animal kingdom. It seems to me that the idea of leaders is an unnatural one that was probably thought up by a leader at some point in antiquity; leaders have been brutally enforcing that idea ever since, to the point where most people cannot conceive of an alternative.

Family , Way , Nature

“An optimal sexual encounter is the paradigm of productive play. The participants potentiate each other's pleasures, nobody keeps score, and everybody wins. The more you give, the more you get.”

Bob Black book The Abolition of Work

The Abolition of Work (1985)
Context: No one can say what would result from unleashing the creative power stultified by work. Anything can happen. The tiresome debater's problem of freedom vs. necessity, with its theological overtones, resolves itself practically once the production of use-values is co-extensive with the consumption of delightful play activity. Life will become a game, or rather many games, but not—as it is now — a zero/sum game. An optimal sexual encounter is the paradigm of productive play. The participants potentiate each other's pleasures, nobody keeps score, and everybody wins. The more you give, the more you get. In the ludic life, the best of sex will diffuse into the better part of daily life. Generalized play leads to the libidinization of life. Sex, in turn, can become less urgent and desperate, more playful.
If we play our cards right, we can all get more out of life than we put into it; but only if we play for keeps.
No one should ever work.
Workers of the world... relax! </center

Pleasure , Optimism

“Clearly, a great crime had been committed against this boy; yet nobody who had had a hand in it — the judge, the jury, the prosecutor, the complaining witness, the policemen and jailers — felt any responsibility about it, because they were not acting as men, but as officials.”

Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945) American journalist

"Anarchist's Progress" in The American Mercury (1927); § III : To Abolish Crime or to Monopolize It? http://www.mises.org/daily/2714
Context: Once, I remember, I ran across the case of a boy who had been sentenced to prison, a poor, scared little brat, who had intended something no worse than mischief, and it turned out to be a crime. The judge said he disliked to sentence the lad; it seemed the wrong thing to do; but the law left him no option. I was struck by this. The judge, then, was doing something as an official that he would not dream of doing as a man; and he could do it without any sense of responsibility, or discomfort, simply because he was acting as an official and not as a man. On this principle of action, it seemed to me that one could commit almost any kind of crime without getting into trouble with one's conscience.
Clearly, a great crime had been committed against this boy; yet nobody who had had a hand in it — the judge, the jury, the prosecutor, the complaining witness, the policemen and jailers — felt any responsibility about it, because they were not acting as men, but as officials. Clearly, too, the public did not regard them as criminals, but rather as upright and conscientious men.
The idea came to me then, vaguely but unmistakably, that if the primary intention of government was not to abolish crime but merely to monopolize crime, no better device could be found for doing it than the inculcation of precisely this frame of mind in the officials and in the public; for the effect of this was to exempt both from any allegiance to those sanctions of humanity or decency which anyone of either class, acting as an individual, would have felt himself bound to respect — nay, would have wished to respect. This idea was vague at the moment, as I say, and I did not work it out for some years, but I think I never quite lost track of it from that time.

Men , Boy

“Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

Statement of 1876, in The Diary of James A. Garfield: 1875-1877 (1983), edited by Harry James Brown and Frederick D. Williams. p. 396
1870s
Context: Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis. Conservatives have their place in the piping times of peace; but in emergencies only rugged issue men amount to much.

“Nobody saves America by sniffing cocaine. Jiggling your knees blankeyed in the rain, when it snows in your nose you catch cold in your brain.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

“Use your weaknesses and fears. Embrace them. Then nobody will be able to use them against you.”

Шол МакЛохлин (JackSepticEye) (1990)

Fear

“A life without purpose is like a river without water, you came here to activate your gift, don’t let nobody stop you.”

Ralph Smart

Water , Life

“So many years of education yet nobody ever taught us how to love ourselves and why it’s so important.”

Ralph Smart

Education , Love , Making love

“This age above all ages is a period in history when it should be our prime duty to preach the Gospel of Grace to all our fellow men and women. The love shown in Christ by our God to mankind should constrain all of us who are followers and disciples of Christ to do all in our power to see to it that the Message of Salvation is carried to those of our fellows for whom Christ Our Saviour was sacrificed but who have not had the benefit of hearing the good news. Since nobody can interfere in the realm of God we should tolerate and live side by side with those of other faiths.”

Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia

Address to the World Evangelical Congress in Berlin (28 October 1966)

God , Faith , History , Christ

“Nobody has done greater service to the Aryan Brahmins of India than Max Muller.”

V. T. Rajshekar (1932) Indian conspiracy theorist

Brahminism. (2015) Gyan Publishing House

“Scarcely any specialist of to-day is really master of all the work which has been done in his own comparatively small field. Facts and their classification have been accumulating at such a rate that nobody seems to have leisure to recognise the relations of sub-groups to the whole. It is as if individual workers... were bringing their stones to one great building and piling them on and cementing them... without regard to any general plan... only where some one has placed a great corner stone... the building... rises... more rapidly... till it... is stopped for want of side support. Yet this great structure... possesses a symmetry and unity... in scientific method. The smallest group of facts, if properly classified and logically dealt with, ...has its proper place... wholly independent of the individual workman who... shaped it. Even when two men work unwittingly at the same stone they will but modify and correct each other... In the face of all this enormous progress... when in all civilised lands men are applying the scientific method... the goal of science is and must be infinitely distant.”

Karl Pearson book The Grammar of Science

Introductory
The Grammar of Science (1900)

Support , Distant , Relation ships , Science

“It is unquestionably the peacefulness and calm of the Spinozist system which particularly produces the idea of its depth, and which, with hidden but irresistible charm, has attracted so many minds. The Spinozist system will also always remain in a certain sense a model. A system of freedom — but with just as great contours, with the same simplicity, as a perfect counter-image (Gegenbild) of the Spinozist system — this would really be the highest system. This is why Spinozism, despite the many attacks on it, and the many supposed refutations, has never really become something truly past, never been really overcome up to now, and no one can hope to progress to the true and the complete in philosophy who has not at least once in his life lost himself in the abyss of Spinozism. Nobody who wishes to arrive at his own firm conviction should leave unread the main work of Spinoza, his Ethics (for he presented his system under this title), and I should like to urge everyone who is seriously concerned with his education not only to study assiduously on his own, which no teacher can replace, but to be most conscientious and careful in the choice of what he reads.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, On the History of Modern Philosophy (1833) [Translated from the German by Andrew Bowie]
S - Z

Peace , Study , Reading , Freedom

“One of the strangest things I have encountered on your world, dear Benita, is that many of your people have no idea who they really are but many ridiculous ideas about what they are expected to be, plus many religious convictions about what they should be, although nobody is! One should not want to be anything but what one is because it creates unhappiness.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Fresco (2000), Chapter 5, p. 57

World , Idea , People

“The writer Arundhati Roy asserted that a pregnant Muslim woman had been murdered and then her foetus ripped from her womb by rioters. When it became clear that nobody knew of the incident and Roy was asked to come and help the police inquiry to find the unfortunate victim, she replied through her lawyers that there was no power which could compel her to attend. She claimed in addition that Ehsan Jafri’s daughters had been murdered alongside him at Gulbarg Society. This prompted Jafri’s son to write from the United States that there was only one daughter and she was in the US with him.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Marino, Andy (2014). Narendra Modi: A political biography. Ch. 7.

Help , Daughters

“A train full of pilgrims coming back from the destruction of this Ayodhya mosque which was disputed. The train caught fire; nobody knows who set fire to the train and 57 pilgrims were burnt…”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Arundhati Roy commenting on the Godhra train attack The God of false things : How Arundhati Roy creates fake news and gets away with it https://www.opindia.com/2017/05/the-god-of-false-things-how-arundhati-roy-creates-fake-news-and-gets-away-with-it/ also https://www.opindia.com/2019/04/urban-naxals-congress-hacks-and-eminent-historians-what-media-wont-tell-you-about-writers-who-signed-the-anti-modi-statement/ (Her statement was criticized as being counter-factual.)

Training

“Science... the ways it does its calculating that approximately nobody going in at a basic level can gain any sense of the whole.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Buckminster Fuller Talks Politics (1982)

Sense , Science , Way

“The fundamental truth of my life, the principle that governs it, is that nobody has a monopoly over the truth. Every person is a lens that focuses reality in a different way and everybody has the right to do so. This, in fact, is an anarchist principle, for I am indeed, an anarchist. From the moment I position myself at a certain standpoint, I immediately see things from that perspective and from its opposing perspective…”

Rosario Ferré (1938–2016) Puerto Rican writer

On how her writing allows readers to imagine themselves in “Sin pelos en la lengua : Rosario Ferré’s Last Interview” https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/377/37730307008.pdf in Centro Journal (2012)

Personality , Truth , Reality , Way

“He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed — love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1950)

Forgetting , Victory , Hope , Heart

“Reliance’s Big cinema had backed out as sponsors of MAMI as it was going through a massive financial crunch and there were rumours that it might shut down. ... From down-to-earth, genuine filmmakers like Shyam Benegal, the festival now was in the hands of corporates, critics, powerful people’s wives and their admirers. This was the year when MAMI officially transformed from a cinema lovers’ festival to a corporate club festival. I learnt this when I reached Chandan cinema with Pallavi for the closing award ceremony. We were official nominees, yet we were asked to sit in a corner seat in the tenth or twelfth row whereas the front rows were all occupied by commercial stars, star wives, their friends and people who are inconsequential to indie cinema. I was officially nominated; my wife Pallavi, besides being a senior actor is a national award winner and has been on the jury of the national awards, but nobody was ready to recognize those who did not make great press.”

Vivek Agnihotri (1973) director

Urban Naxals (2018)

Star , Making love , People , Lovers

“No one has officially told me that I have lost the Tory whip. The fault’s probably mine. I’m notorious for only using my mobile phone for outgoing calls: nobody knows my London number and I certainly don’t do anything online. So there may somewhere be an email or text message or something telling me, but I gather from the media that there’s no doubt that I’ve lost the whip. My status otherwise is completely unclear.”

Ken Clarke (1940) British Conservative politician

Said after Clarke voted against the government on the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill 2017-19. Boris Johnson had promised to remove the Conservative whip from those who rebelled. Quoted by the Guardian. Ken Clarke: ‘I’m not sure yet, but I may protest and vote Lib Dem’ https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/07/ken-clarke-interview-andrew-rawnsley-lost-tory-whip (7 September 2019)
2019

“Some secrets stayed secrets because nobody knew them. Some because nobody told.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Cibola Burn (2014), Chapter 5 (p. 55)

Secret

“I am simply M. Tanner, an American artist. Nobody knows or cares what was the complexion of my forebears. I live and work there in terms of absolute social equality.”

Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937) American painter

On settling in Paris, France (as quoted in “Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit” http://www.title-magazine.com/2012/03/henry-ossawa-tanner-modern-spirit/ in Title Magazine; 2012)

“Generally speaking, it is irresponsible to lead the world to the brink of a global crisis whose consequences are hard to foresee. We have never used such a policy, and we will not do so in the future…. We are not afraid of anything. Given our territory, our defense system, and our people that are ready to fight for independence and sovereignty — the willingness of our men and women to give up their lives for their country is not common among all nations. Nobody can change these things, and this makes us certain that we can feel secure…”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

Cooperation, Terrorism, UK & USA, President Trump, Resolving Conflict, Defense, Crimea, The Media, Nuclear Weapons Policy: 15th Plenary Session (18 October 2018)

Country , Future , People , Fight

“Economically, unfair trade will benefit nobody in the long run, as poorer countries will be bled totally dry and will become unable to produce anything.”

Chris Martin (1977) musician, co-founder of Coldplay

http://coldplaying.com/coldplay-campaigns-to-make-trade-fair-on-twisted-logic-tour-2006/ source

Country

“When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union — like public housing in the United States — look decrepit within a year or two of their construction.”

Milton Friedman book Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 1 “The Power of the Market”, p. 24

Housing

“The essence of the problem is that once we begin to allow exceptions for special interests, we move from a system of private arrangements to a political system where everyone’s freedom is limited and government becomes a matter of trying to balance those interests. Nobody really wins under these terms.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“Interview with Milton Friedman”, Playboy magazine (Feb. 1973)

Problem , Freedom

“That is a widespread myth, that it is possible to spend money with nobody paying for it. You have everybody screaming that we ought to have new, bigger, more generous government programs. Where are we going to raise the money? Tax business. But business corporations can’t pay any taxes. A corporate executive may sign the check, but where does he get the money? From his stockholders or from his customers or from his employees. Unlike the federal government, he doesn’t have a printing press in his basement. So the only way he can pay money to the government is imposing a burden on somebody. Government cannot spend money at nobody’s expense.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“Economic Myths and Public Opinion” https://miltonfriedman.hoover.org/friedman_images/Collections/2016c21/AmSpectator_01_1976.pdf, The Alternative: An American Spectator, vol. 9, no. 4, (January 1976) pp. 5-9

Money , Way , Business

“This leads to my next myth—the myth that government can spend money at nobody’s expense. What was really involved in that last story was that somehow the local people do not pay out the money coming down from Washington somebody else does. Of course, the truth is that the money makes a round trip between Florida and Washington, and there is a discount taken off for cash as it passes through Washington. Some of you may remember that wonderful description of government by the French economist, Frederic Bastiat, who said that government is that fiction whereby everybody believes that he can live at the expense of everybody else.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“Economic Myths and Public Opinion” https://miltonfriedman.hoover.org/friedman_images/Collections/2016c21/AmSpectator_01_1976.pdf, The Alternative: An American Spectator, vol. 9, no. 4, (January 1976) pp. 5-9

Money , Truth , Making love , People

“Web 1.0 was all about connecting people. It was an interactive space, and I think Web 2.0 is of course a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along.”

Tim Berners-Lee (1955) British computer scientist, inventor of the World Wide Web

developerWorks Interviews: Tim Berners-Lee (podcast/audio plus transcript) http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/podcast/dwi/cm-int082206txt.html

Thinking , People

“I love these characters that have a duality to them. I wanted to be Han Solo not Luke Skywalker. It’s more realistic for me, nobody is that square, especially in today’s world. We all have two sides to us, and that’s what makes us human. I love the movies where everybody was an outlaw in some way…”

Rick Yune (1971) American actor

On favoring complicated characters in “Exclusive Interview With Rick Yune On The Man With The Iron Fists” https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/interview-rick-yune-man-iron-fists/ in We Got This Covered (2012)

World , Love , Way , Making love

“I know all about Thor and Balder and Mjolnir, the hammer. Nobody ever bothered with that stuff except me. I loved it in high school and I loved it in my pre-high school days. It was the thing that kept my mind off the general poverty in the area. When I went to school that’s what kept me in school — it wasn’t mathematics and it wasn’t geography; it was history.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

"Jack Kirby Interview" http://www.tcj.com/jack-kirby-interview/6/, Gary Groth, The Comics Journal, #134, (February 1990, posted May 23, 2011).

School , History , Mathematics , Love

“Anything radical was dangerous to me, as it was to the average American. Nobody knew where a thing like that would lead and we were always afraid of chaos. So communism became the doorway to chaos, and the doorway to chaos was the doorway to evil. Your family might be hurt. Your friends might be hurt. You didn’t want to see a thing like that.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

TCJ Archive, "Jack Kirby Interview" http://www.tcj.com/jack-kirby-interview/5/, The Comics Journal, (February 1990, posted May 23, 2011).

Family , Hurt , Evil , Communication

“They won’t put up a statue to me. No, no, no. Nobody’s got that sense of humour.”

Robert Muldoon (1921–1992) Prime Minister of New Zealand, politician

Source: From the documentary Robert Muldoon: The Grim Face of Power, 1994
Context: Responding to a journalist while attending the unveiling of a statue of Sir Keith Holyoake.

Sense

“Cultists. They’re like cockroaches. We humans are incredibly fine-tuned by evolution for the task of spotting coincidences and causal connections. It’s a very useful talent that dates back to the bad old days on the savannah (when noticing that there were lion prints by the watering hole and then cousin Ugg went missing, and today there are more lion prints and nobody had gone missing yet, was the kind of thing that could save your skin). But once we developed advanced lion countermeasures like stone axes and language, it turned into our secret curse. Because, you see, when we spot coincidences we assume there’s an intentional actor behind them—and that’s how we create religions. Nature does weird stuff, so it must be governed by supernature. There’s lightning in the clouds: Zeus must be throwing his thunderbolts again. Everyone’s dying of plague except those weird folks with the strange god who wash every day: it must be evil sorcery. And so on.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Fuller Memorandum (2010), Chapter 8, “Club Zero” (p. 128)

God , Religion , Bad luck , Nature

“Nobody taught me how to say no when a beautiful naked woman begs me to take my clothes off.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Jennifer Morgue (2006), Chapter 7, “Nightmare Beach” (p. 144)

Beauty , Clothes

“There has been a massive transfer of wealth from the working class of this country to the top 1 percent. And at the end of the day, John—and the media doesn’t talk about it, the corporate media does not talk about it—nobody can defend three families in this country owning more wealth than the bottom half of the American people. Or that 49 percent of all new income today goes to the top 1 percent. That is indefensible. That is outrageous. That is immoral. And I think the American people understand that has got to change…”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Bernie Sanders: ‘We Have to Talk About Democratic Socialism as an Alternative to Unfettered Capitalism, The Nation, John Nichols https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-socialism-capitalism-2020/ (12 June 2019)
2010s, 2019, June 2019

Family , Understanding , Country , Wealth

“Nobody in this land, certainly no Christian, can accept hating on a full-time basis; it is apt to reflect back on the hater.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

Source: How I Grew (1987), Ch. 4

Time , Hate

“The clamor of agreement betrayed the anti-French sentiment ever ready to be mobilized when Americans in Paris got together. And as happened with anti-Semites merrily fraternizing, nobody at the table seemed to remember that there were French people present.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

"Round Table, with the Damsel Parcenet"
Birds of America (1971)

People

“Polly saw the point. Would she wish not to have been born? Unhappy as she was, she could not say that. Even when she had wished to die, she had not wished never to have been born. Nobody alive could do that.”

Mary McCarthy book The Group

Source: The Group (1963), Ch. 12

“The long struggle is ended. I must pass away. Good-by. O, men are so cold and hard and half conscious toward their suffering fellows. Nobody understands. O my mother! and O my little girl! What will become of you? And the poor four-footed! May the long years be merciful! Take me to my river. There, where the wild birds sing and the waters go on and on, alone in my groves, forever.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Suicide note

Singing , Understanding , Girl , Suffering

“No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline. Of all forms of government, those administered by bureaus are about the least satisfactory to an enlightened and progressive people. Being irresponsible they become autocratic. … Unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy. It … sets up the pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody. …”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Speech at College of William and Mary (May 15, 1926)

Democracy , People

“The spirit of America is to help everybody and injure nobody. We can be in a position to help only by unifying the American nation, building it up, making it strong, keeping it independent, using its inclination to help and its disclination to injure. Those who cast in their lot with this country can be true to the land of their origin only by first being true to America. When the public sees and realizes that racial groups here are first of all devoted to the interests of this country, there will be little difficulty in securing here the present needed help and assistance for the countries of the old world.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Genius of America (1924)

Country , Strong , Help , World

“Giving exhibitions is like throwing a drop into an ocean. Any contribution to the enhancement of the understanding of Islamic culture adds to that ocean, which I call the ocean of understanding. The greatest and one of the strongest bridges between cultures is the one that is built out of art. Religion and politics have their own dialects. The language of art is universal. There you are safe. Nobody can label you.”

Nasser Khalili (1945) British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist

Interview with The Independent (April 15, 2004) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/healing-the-world-with-art-560103.html

Universe , Religion , Understanding , Art

“Nobody but nobody is quite so dumb as to believe that all, most, or even very many uses of firearms to prevent acts of criminal violence result in justifiable homicides.”

Kevin D. Williamson (1972) American writer

Most of them do not result in anybody’s being shot, much less shot dead, because most of them do not involve discharging a firearm. As it turns out, pointing a gun at a would-be assailant is in many cases a very persuasive gesture.
"The Dumbest Gun-Control Paragraph" https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-dumbest-gun-control-paragraph/ (3 June 2019), National Review

“Campaign groups which used to oppose neo-Nazis realized that there weren’t sufficient Nazis to justify their business models. They decided that, henceforth, attacking parties such as Ukip should also come under their anti-fascist remit. Soon anybody who opposed supranational institutions or sought to restrict immigration found themselves labelled as beyond the pale. It meant that the views of the majority of the public — in Britain and elsewhere — effectively became defined as far right. In recent years this terminological mission-creep has morphed from being annoying to being disturbing. For if everybody is a fascist, then nobody is. And anyone who knows the scene across Europe will understand that we may well have need of these terms.”

Douglas Murray (1979) British political commentator and far-right activist

Source: "Right from wrong: a guide to the new European politics" https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/right-from-wrong-a-guide-to-the-new-european-politics/, The Spectator, August 17, 2019

Business , Understanding

“As far as the eye could reach, I found myself gazing on a surging sea of aunts. There were tall aunts, short aunts, stout aunts, thin aunts, and an aunt who was carrying on a conversation in a low voice to which nobody seemed to be paying the slightest attention.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Mating Season

The Mating Season (1949)

Sea

“Cause up until that day, I was an idiot, but nobody else knew, you know?”

Brian Regan (comedian) (1957) American comedian

Brian Regan Live (1997)

“He’d grown up in white Jersey stringtowns where nobody knew shit about anything and hated anybody who did.”

William Gibson book Mona Lisa Overdrive

Source: Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988), Ch. 2

Hate

“My message, unchanged for more than fifty years, is this: God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be. It is the message of grace… A grace that pays the eager beaver who works all day long the same wages as the grinning drunk who shows up at ten till five. A grace that hikes up the robe and runs breakneck toward the prodigal reeking of sin and wraps him up and decides to throw a party no ifs, ands, or buts… This vulgar grace is indiscriminate compassion. It works without asking anything of us… Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try to find something or someone it cannot cover. Grace is enough… Jesus is enough.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir https://books.google.com/books?id=eFTh3OqjASkC&pg=PA192 (2011), pp. 192–194
2010s

Love , Making love , God

“She found, however, that revenge hurts nobody quite so much as the one who tries to inflict it.”

Lucy Maud Montgomery book Anne of the Island

Source: Anne of the Island (1915), Ch. 2

Hurt , Revenge

“But is diversity our strength? The less we have in common, the stronger we are? Is that true of families? Is it true in neighborhoods or businesses? Of course not. Then why is it true of America? Nobody knows. Nobody’s even allowed to ask the question.”

Tucker Carlson (1969) American political commentator

[Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution, Tucker, Carlson, 2018, 978-1501183669, Free Press]; [Guess who said it: Tucker Carlson or a far-right shooter, Nathan, Robinson, August 10, 2019, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/10/tucker-carlson-fox-news-united-states-race]
2010s, 2018, Ship of Fools

Business , Family , Question

“It’s obvious we need more scientists and skilled engineers. What we’re getting instead are waves of poor people with a high school education or less. They’re nice people; nobody doubts that. But as an economic matter, this is insane. It’s indefensible, so nobody tries to defend it. It’s indefensible, so no one even tries to defend it.Instead, our leaders demand you shut up and accept it. We’ve got a moral obligation to admit the world’s poor, they tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer, dirtier and more divided.”

Tucker Carlson (1969) American political commentator

Immigration is a form of atonement. Previous leaders of our country committed sins. So, we must pay for those sins by welcoming an endless chain of migrant caravans.
December 13, 2018 on Tucker Carlson Tonight ([December 14, 2018, Tucker Carlson: Why no one ever makes the economic case for mass immigration, Tucker, Carlson, Fox News, https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-why-no-one-ever-makes-the-economic-case-for-mass-immigration]; [The New York Times, August 20, 2019, Hsu, Tiffany, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/business/media/tucker-carlson-fox-advertisers.html]; [Tucker Carlson said immigration makes America ‘dirtier.’ So an advertiser took action, The Washington Post, Erik, Wemple, w:Erik Wemple, December 15, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/15/tucker-carlson-said-immigration-makes-america-dirtier-so-an-advertiser-took-action/]; [Advertisers recoil as Tucker Carlson says immigrants make US ‘dirtier’, The Guardian, Luke, O'Neil, December 18, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/dec/18/tucker-carlson-immigrants-poorer-dirtier-advertisers-pull-out]; [Advertisers bail on Fox News' Tucker Carlson over immigration comments, NBC News, December 17, 2018, Tim, Stelloh, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/advertisers-bail-fox-news-tucker-carlson-over-immigration-comments-n949171]; [Red Lobster stops advertising on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show after he made controversial comments about women's pay and immigrants, Kate, Taylor, Eliza, Relman, January 7, 2019, Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/red-lobster-cuts-advertising-on-tucker-carlsons-fox-news-show-2019-1]; [September 17, 2019, Is Tucker Carlson the Most Important Pundit in America?, Park, MacDougald, New York, The Intelligencer, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/is-tucker-carlson-the-most-important-pundit-in-america.html])
2010s, 2018

School , Country , People , World

“It is right for Parliament to have the first say but if we need to break the impasse, our options must include campaigning for a public vote and nobody is ruling out Remain as an option.”

Keir Starmer (1962) British politician and barrister

Labour conference: Members vote to keep referendum option open https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45631792 BBC News (25 September 2018)
2018

“That shit is the real deal. Listen: I’m a black motherfucker from the poorest town in the country. I’ve been through a lot in life. And I know him. When I see him, he shakes my hand and respects my family. None of them—Barack, whoever—nobody else does that. They’re gonna be who they are and disregard me, my family. So I’m voting for him. If I can get 20,000 people or more to vote for him, I’m gonna do it.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

In an interview with The Daily Caller. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/21/mike-tyson-why-i-m-a-muslim-for-donald-trump.html (January 21, 2016)
On Donald Trump

Family , Life , People , Country

“Nobody knows what is going to happen because so much depends on an enormous number of variables, on simple hazard. On the other hand if you look at history retrospectively, then, even though it was contingent, you can tell a story that makes sense…. Jewish history, for example, in fact had its ups and downs, its, enmities and its friendships, as every history of all people has. The notion that there is one unilinear history is of course false. But if you look at it after the experience of Auschwitz it looks as though all of history—or at least history since the Middle Ages — had no other aim than Auschwitz…. This, is the real problem of every philosophy of history how is it possible that in retrospect it always looks as though it couldn’t have happened otherwise?”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist

The New York Review of Books interview with the French writer Roger Errera (1978)

Friendship , History , Dependency , People

“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie — a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days — but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist

The New York Review of Books interview with the French writer Roger Errera (1978)

History , Dependency , People , Nature

“If gravity is a fundamental force, then it has to be explained by an expanded version of general relativity, a more complete, a more fundamental theory. Whether that is quantum gravity of something more radical that requires a paradigm shift like, for instance, our research in multiverse theory, nobody knows at the moment.”

Laura Mersini-Houghton (1969) Albanian cosmologist and theoretical physicist

[Why Is Gravity So Elusive? Frank Wilczek, Erik Verlinde, Laura Mersini-Houghton, 4 December 2017, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lui9qZ6cDs] 11:20 of 40:44

“The assurance of a certain minimum income for everyone, or a sort of floor below which nobody need fall even when he is unable to provide for himself, appears not only to be a wholly legitimate protection against a risk common to all, but a necessary part of the Great Society in which the individual no longer has specific claims on the members of the particular small group into which he was born.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

Law, Legislation and Liberty, volume 3, chapter 3, p. 55 https://books.google.pt/books?id=nclLLOfnGqAC&pg=PA55 (1979)
1960s–1970s, Law, Legislation and Liberty (1973, 1976, 1979)

Appearance , Parting

“Apart from the fact there is no normal standard of health, nobody has proved that man is necessarily cheerful by nature. And further, man, by the very fact of being man, of possessing consciousness, is, in comparison with the ass or the crab, a diseased animal. Consciousness is a disease.”

Miguel de Unamuno book The Tragic Sense of Life

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), I : The Man of Flesh and Bone

Animals , Nature , Health , Disease

“As an aphorist, Cioran has no rivals other than perhaps Nietzsche, and many of his philosophies are echoed by Ligotti. But Ligotti is far more disturbing than Cioran, who is actually very funny. In exploring these philosophies, nobody I’ve read has expressed the idea of humanity as aberration more powerfully than Cioran and Ligotti.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

Nic Pizzolatto, as quoted by Michael Calia (2014) " Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’ http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/02/02/writer-nic-pizzolatto-on-thomas-ligotti-and-the-weird-secrets-of-true-detective/", Speakeasy blog on the Wall Street Journal

Idea , Reading

“Nobody is a born killer. And nobody ever forgets the first time they get laid, nor the first time they spike somebody.”

Steve Perry (1947) American writer

Source: The Ramal Extraction (2012), Chapter 16

Forgetting , Time

“If it took half the revenue of the nation, nobody would grudge it, nor even if it took it all save a bare pittance. But in truth the expense of educating ten thousand youth is not ten nor five times that of educating one thousand. The principle which makes all operations on a large scale proportionally cheaper than on a small scale holds as to education also.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 21.

Time , Truth , Youth , Education

“Your collection is not a woman. That’s only a metaphor—an abstraction! You’ll be dying for nothing, for a principle that nobody else can even comprehend.”

Michael Swanwick book The Iron Dragon's Daughter

As she spoke, Jane became convinced that she herself would never willingly die for a principle. She might feel guilty about it, but she’d smile and lie, knuckle under, pretend, anything, in order to survive. It made her feel a little sad to realize this, but also, at the same time, very adult.
Source: The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), Chapter 15 (p. 263)

“Well, Al Gore invented the Internet and he won a Nobel Peace Prize. He didn’t have any help with his science, right? In other words, he had two other scientists with him. He took the Nobel Peace Prize. He didn’t share it with the guys who probably were the brains. He’s a big fat elitist pig. He’s a limousine liberal. In fact, An Inconvenient Truth is garbage. It’s bullsh*t. No kid, nobody who’s going to change the world is going to look at that thing, yet he got a Nobel Peace Prize because he’s on the inside. He’s part of the elite. He’s part of the conspiracy of the corporate, the bureaucratic and the labor elite. And look at him. He looks like a big puffed out piece of pompous shit.”

Lloyd Kaufman (1945) American film director

CraveOnline http://www.craveonline.com/film/articles/507781-exclusive-cannes-interview-lloyd-kaufman-on-nuke-em-high May 28, 2013
2013

Peace , Help , Truth , Parting

“He brought the first movie camera from Germany, but nobody knows what happened to it afterwards. Maybe it is lying with some antique collector. There were absolutely no film-making facilities - production or distribution - available as people believed films had no future. But, whatever he did from scratch set a precedent for the future generations of film-makers.”

Dadasaheb Phalke (1870–1944) Indian producer-director-screenwriter

His grandson Kiran Phalke in "Dadasaheb Phalke's family wants Bharat Ratna for him".

Future , Lying , Making love , People

“If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.”

Ted Cruz (1970) American politician

Lindsey Graham, February 26, 2016, as quoted in Lindsey Graham jokes about how to get away with murdering Ted Cruz http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/26/politics/lindsey-graham-ted-cruz-dinner (CNN.com)

“Nobody associated with Sahodarakal is really willing to disclose what camera wizardry it was that finally transformed Kamalahasan into a fascinating midget. Some of the dwarf scenes were shot in a circus playing in Cochin by digging a pit with the actor standing knee-deep in it. The shoes were fixed to his knee and the pit was covered with a carpet.”

Kamal Haasan (1954) Indian actor

Ramesh Menon, in “Comeback king (31May 1989)”

Shoe

“A few Oscars maybe. But what value are a few Oscars in front of the adulation and warmth of a billion smiles and the awe and respect of a billion salutes? I have never ceased to be amazed by the limits and standards he sets (for) himself — standards that nobody else imagines even exists!”

Kamal Haasan (1954) Indian actor

K Balachander, in “K Balachander praises Kamal Hassan! (2 September 2010)”

Smile , Imagination

“Nobody could work a room like Rod—nobody.”

Rod Blagojevich (1956) Former Governor of Illinois

Jan Schakowsky, to Chicago Magazine, 2009
Source: Chicago Straight, David, Bernstein, June 2009, Chicago magazine, Tribune Media Group, June 29, 2015 http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/June-2009/Chicago-Straight/,

“Nobody on this planet had a range of passing like Paul Scholes. Training every day was a pleasure just watching him. Unbelievable career.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

http://twitter.com/#!/themichaelowen
Michael Owen

Pleasure , Training

“Nobody else in the world can play the way Scholes does. The passes he produces all over the field and the way he changes the game is brilliant. Every manager would like him. But luckily he is here and playing with us. Paul practices that all the time. When he has finished training he always goes out and shoots.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

http://cantheyscore.com/2011/05/31/paul-scholes-50-quotes-that-define-a-legend/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SportBullet%2Ffeed+%28Sport+Bullet%29&utm_content=Google+UK
Dimitar Berbatov

Time , Game , Way , World

“Whenever single people complain about anything, I really want them to shut the fuck up. First of all, if you’re single, your life has no consequence on the earth. Even if you’re helping people aggressively, which you’re fucking not, nobody gives a shit what happens to you. You can die, and it actually doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. Your mother will cry or whatever, but otherwise, nobody gives a shit.”

Louis C.K. (1967) American comedian and actor

http://splitsider.com/2013/02/the-annotated-wisdom-of-louis-c-k/

Help , Life , Cry , People

“Nobody crossed him without a battle. He disliked almost everything, particularly his wife, his children, his neighbors, his church, his priest, his town, his state, his country, and the country from which he emigrated. Nor did he give a damn for the world either, or the sun or the stars, or the universe, or heaven or hell. But he liked women.”

John Fante book The Brotherhood of the Grape

The Brotherhood of the Grape (1977)

Hell , Country , Sun , Star

“Hey, this is Europe. We took it from nobody; we won it from the bare soil that the ice left. The bones of our ancestors, and the stones of their works, are everywhere. Our liberties were won in wars and revolutions so terrible that we do not fear our governors: they fear us. Our children giggle and eat ice-cream in the palaces of past rulers. We snap our fingers at kings. We laugh at popes. When we have built up tyrants, we have brought them down. And we have nuclear *fucking* weapons.”

Ken MacLeod (1954) Scottish science fiction writer

USENET posting to rec.sf.arts.fandom http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.fandom/browse_frm/thread/303b0da0ab25aee/b12adceacd343279 28 September 2000, in the discussion of Robert A. Heinlein's quote "The cowards never started and the weaklings died on the way." (Expanded Universe, How to be a Survivor in the Atomic Age)
Other sources

War , Fear , Children , Past

“Nobody beat Ray twice until he was 40 years old. His intelligence, his versatility, and his will to win were the reasons he won all those rematches. He created a new place for the imagination of a fighter.”

Sugar Ray Robinson (1921–1989) American boxer

Jack Newfield http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2441835652984416201&ei=sjpZS9eZGZPllQevwenkAw&q=sugar+ray+robinson#
About Sugar Ray sourced

Intelligence , Imagination

“Ron Paul may be the wackiest candidate in the GOP field. But for pure, blind stupidity, nobody beats Santorum. In my 20 years in the Senate, I never met a dumber member, which he reminded me of today.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

Mark Salter, aide of John McCain, Facebook, 2011-05-17, quoted in * Greg
Sargent
Happy Hour Roundup
2011-05-17
The Plum Line
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/happy-hour-roundup/2011/03/03/AF2ad25G_blog.html
2011-05-19
referring to Santorum's 2011-05-17 statement that John McCain "doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works"

Stupidity

“This jackass of a president ought to proclaim pride month for decency, abstinence and chastity, not for the most abominable sins known to mankind — in the estimation of God Almighty, that is. Obama will bring down the curses of God upon the whole creation. Remember, you ignorant Americans, you Obama-worshippers around the world, we warned you. He raises a false argument ordering that nobody discriminate against fags. Listen up, you Bible-ignorant moron! It is neither wrongful nor sinful to discriminate against sin!”

Fred Phelps (1929–2014) American pastor and activist

2000s, Fag-Lover Obama (2009)

World , God , Falseness

“Some people don’t like Mr Cameron. Mr Cameron and his cube of air. He doesn’t seem to know where to put that thing down. He can’t find a place for it. I think the reason he can’t get rid of it is because it contains the essence of the Big Society, and nobody wants that shit.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

on David Cameron
Yeah, Yeah (2011)

Thinking , People

“Nobody and nothing beats The Simpsons.”

Alice Cooper (1948) American rock singer, songwriter and musician

Even after all this time, it's still the best satire since Monty Python.
Interview with Nick Harper in The Guardian (28 November 2003).

“I am quite surprised, that with all my work, and some of it is very, very good, that nobody talks about The Miracle Worker.”

Anne Bancroft (1931–2005) American actress

We're talking about Mrs. Robinson. I understand the world... I'm just a little dismayed that people aren't beyond it yet.
Interview (2003).

“This is our fucking city! And nobody is gonna dictate our freedom. Stay Strong!”

David Ortiz (1975) Dominican-American professional baseball player, designated hitter

After the Boston Marathon Bombings
Biography at biggeststars.com http://www.biggeststars.com/d/david-ortiz-biography.html

Strong , Freedom

“In their last ditch, the royalists object that this all too bloodless and practical; that people need and want the element of magic and fantasy. Nobody wants life to be charmless. But the element of fantasy and magic is as primitive as it is authentic, and there are good reasons why it should not come from the state.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

When orchestrated and distributed in that way, it leads to disappointment and rancour, and can lead to the enthronement of sillier or nastier idols.
1990s, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish

Life , People

“Pournelle, who if I recall correctly is a veteran of the Korean conflict, does mention logistical details more often than I expect in MilSF. Not the fun kind of logistics, involving the production of a million zillion Squamoid Hypermissiles, but the mundane sort, like who gets to dig the latrines. Latrines are not romantic, but nobody wants a battle called off because the men all have dysentery and are too busy shitting blood to fight.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

review of The Mercenary by Jerry Pournelle http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/the-hunter-and-the-bear, 2016
2010s

Business , Fight , Men

“Other countries may boast of this and that, but nobody can touch the United States for poisonous snakes. We have about twenty species, most of them deadly, and Europe has only five or six, none of them much good. We have fifteen kinds of Rattlesnakes alone and nobody else has even one.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

Footnote: There is a species in Central and South America, but it probably came from here.
The Rattlesnake
How to Become Extinct (1941)

Country

“What people need to understand is pussy is the Front Door to Life. Do you get that? Nobody ever thinks about it like that in the dusty ancient cabinet of old white men that think they know everything.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, FEMINISM

Understanding , People , Thinking , Life

“But go ahead and judge DeSean for the company he keeps. While you’re at it, judge me, too, because I still live in Los Angeles, and my family does, too. We didn’t run from where we grew up. We aren’t afraid to be associated with the people who came up with us. We brought some of our money back and started charities and tried to help out a few guys who were with us when we were nobodies. I won’t apologize for that, and I suspect neither will DeSean when he’s back on the field doing what he’s always done: grinding through adversity.”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

Stardom Doesn’t Change Where You’re From (April 02, 2014)

Money , Family , People , Help

“We humans are naturally compelled to compare ourselves with one another. We are continually measuring people’s status, the levels of respect and attention they receive, and noticing any differences between what we have and what they have. For some of us, this need to compare serves as a spur to excel through our work. For others, it can turn into deep envy—feelings of inferiority and frustration that lead to covert attacks and sabotage. Nobody admits to acting out of envy. You must recognize the early warning signs—praise and bids for friendship that seem effusive and out of proportion; subtle digs at you under the guise of good-natured humor; apparent uneasiness with your success. It is most likely to crop up among friends or your peers in the same profession. Learn to deflect envy by drawing attention away from yourself. Develop your sense of self-worth from internal standards and not incessant comparisons.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 10 : Beware the Fragile Ego
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Drawing , Friendship , Success , People

“The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: "For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages," what just reason could he give for refusing? But nobody says this. The self-appointed unqualified nurse says: "You are to sing the patient a song which will make him believe that I, and I alone, can cure him. If you can't or won't, I shall confiscate your passport and send you to the mines."”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

And the poor patient in his delirium cries: "Please sing me a song which will give me sweet dreams instead of nightmares. If you succeed, I will give you a penthouse in New York or a ranch in Arizona."
"Writing", p. 27
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

Singing , Self-confidence , God , Making love

“We went on the day on the boat train. I was 7, I had never seen a ship before. It looked very big. Everybody was very excited. We went down to the cabin and that's when my mother said to my father that she had made up her mind quite firmly that she would not go to bed in that ship. She would sit up at night. She decided that she wouldn't go to bed at night and she didn't!" I saw that ship sink, "I never closed my eyes. I didn't sleep at all. I saw it, I heard it, and nobody could possibly forget it." "I can remember the colours, the sounds, everything," she said. "The worst thing I can remember are the screams." "It seemed as if once everybody had gone, drowned, finished, the whole world was standing still. There was nothing, just this deathly, terrible silence in the dark night with the stars overhead." The band played one version of 'Nearer My God to Thee' of which there are three and the one they played was the one that was played in church."”

Eva Hart (1905–1996) Titanic survivor

"I never closed my eyes at all – I saw that ship sink. And I saw that ship break in half.
Interview from 1993, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD5J43Z9AWI, quoted in New York Times, 16 February 1996

Sleep , God , Night , Forgetting

“The struggle for power is universal in time and space and is an undeniable fact of experience. It cannot be denied that throughout historic time, regardless of social, economic and political conditions, states have met each other in contests for power. Even though anthropologists have shown that certain primitive peoples seem to be free from the desire for power, nobody has yet shown how their state of mind can be re-created on a worldwide scale so as to eliminate the struggle for power from the international scene. … International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power. Whatever the ultimate aims of international politics, power is always the immediate aim.”

Hans Morgenthau book Politics Among Nations

Source: Politics Among Nations (1948), p. 29 (1978 edition)

Universe , Time , People

“Nobody is a fiscal conservative anymore. All this talk about concern for the deficit and the budget has been bogus for as long as it's been around.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

" Rush Limbaugh just admitted Republicans have totally abandoned a core party principle https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/17/politics/rush-limbaugh-debt-trump/index.html", CNN (July 17, 2019)
2010s