Quotes about nothing (10000 quotes, page 47)

“Until mid 2002, I was a meat eater. I have always instinctively been opposed to cruelty to animals, as all decent and sensible people are, but didn’t know much about how food animals were raised or processed. I assumed humans had always eaten meat because it was natural for us to, and that food animals were raised on farms where they were fairly oblivious to their surroundings and only moderately inconvenienced until their swift and humane execution. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over 95% of animals raised for food are born, live, and die in horribly painful conditions. … Another misconception I had was about the relative intelligence and awareness of farm animals. Since becoming vegan, I’ve met rescued “food” animals now living natural lives outdoors … Cows, pigs and chickens are as smart, friendly and loving, as dogs and cats, and create friendships with other animals and people in much the same ways. Each has its own personality and its own set of likes and dislikes. If you think you’re an animal advocate because you care about saving dogs and cats in city shelters but still eat meat, think again.”

Dan Piraro (1958) cartoonist

"Why I’m Vegan", in his official website Bizarro.com http://bizarro.com/why-im-vegan/

Love , Pain , Friendship , People

“The war is total disaster. It's a catastrophe, nothing less. It is such a shame that this took place. In fact, I gained a lot of respect for our current president's father by the fact that he had the sense not to go in to Iraq. He won the war and then said let's not go the rest of the way and he turned out to be right. And Saddam Hussein, whether they like him or didn't like him, he hated terrorists. He'd shoot and kill terrorists. When terrorists came in to his country, which he did control and he did dominate, he would kill terrorists. Now it's a breeding ground for terrorists. So, look, the war is a total catastrophe…and they have a civil war going on.”

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

Interview on "The Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0703/16/sitroom.03.html (16 March 2007)
2000s

Hate , War , Way , Sense

“But it was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it even at this day. Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Autobiography (1821) in notes describing some of the debates of 1779 on slavery.
1820s

Fate , People , Books , Nature

“He’s engaged to be married to Stiffy Byng, and his long years of football should prove an excellent preparation for setting up house with her. The way I look at it is that when a fellow has had plug-uglies in cleated boots doing a Shuffle-off-to-Buffalo on his face Saturday after Saturday since he was a slip of a boy, he must get to fear nothing, not even marriage with a girl like Stiffy, who from early childhood has seldom let the sun go down without starting some loony enterprise calculated to bleach the hair of one and all.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963)

Marriage , Fear , Way , Girl

“The Idea of the Priest is not, therefore, a primal force; it is an accidental complex of various forces, among which there is no essential connection. Their temporary union is due simply to the fact that they have happened to come into conflict in actual life, and have been compelled to compromise and join hands. The living, absolute Idea, which strove to make itself all-powerful, and changed the external form of life while remaining itself unchanged—this elemental Idea has died and passed away together with its Prophets. Nothing remains but its effects—the superficial impress that it has been able to leave on the complex form of life. It is this form of life, already outworn, that the Priests strive to perpetuate, for the sake of the Prophetic impress that it bears.”

Ahad Ha'am (1856–1927) Hebrew essayist and thinker

Source: Selected Essays (1904), "Priest and Prophet" (1893), p. 132

Life , Idea , Change

“What preoccupies most scientists now is not how much they know compared to 50 years ago, though that is enormous as a difference, but how little they know compared to what they're finding out […] For a few milliseconds really of cosmic time our species has lived on one very very small rock, in a very small solar system that's a part of a fantastically unimportant suburb, in one of an uncountable number of galaxies […] Every single second since the big bang a star the size of our sun has blown up, gone to nothing […] And indeed physicists now exist who can tell you the date on which our sun will follow suit […] We know when it's [the world] coming to an end and we know how it will be, but we know something even more extraordinary which is the rate of expansion of this explosion we're looming through is actually speeding up. Our universe is flying apart further and faster than we thought it was […] Everyone who studies it professionally finds it impossible to reconcile this extraordinarily destructive, chaotic, self-destructive process, to find in it the finger of god, to find in that the idea of a design. And it's not just because we know so little about it, it's because what we know about it that's essential doesn't seem as if it's the intended result brought about by a divine-benign creator who loves every single one of us living as we do on this tiny rock in this negligible suburb of the cosmos.”

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

Christopher Hitchens vs. William Dembski, 18/11/2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctuloBOYolE&t=11m29s
2010s, 2010

Love , God , World , Star

“Neither ecological nor social engineering will lead us to a conflict-free, simple path... Utilitarians and others who simply advise us to be happy are unhelpful, because we almost always have to make a choice either between different kinds of happiness--different things to be happy _about_--or between these and other things we want, which nothing to do with happiness.”

Mary Midgley (1919–2018) British philosopher and ethicist

Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1979).

Happiness

“Birth and death are nothing but integration and disintegration, the appearance and subsequent disappearance of the phenomenal objects in manifestation. True understanding, apperception, includes the understanding that there is no separation between understanding and action.”

Ramesh Balsekar (1917–2009) Indian guru

Page 49

Death , Birth , Understanding , Appearance

“I have purposely presented the land ethic as a product of social evolution because nothing so important as an ethic is ever ‘written’ … it evolves in the minds of a thinking community.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "The Land Ethic", p. 225.

Communication , Thinking

“Sure enough, America is a great, and in many respects a blessed and hopeful phenomenon. Sure enough, these hardy millions of Anglo-Saxon men prove themselves worthy of their genealogy; and, with the axe and plough and hammer, if not yet with any much finer kind of implements, are triumphantly clearing out wide spaces, seedfields for the sustenance and refuge of mankind, arenas for the future history of the world; doing, in their day and generation, a creditable and cheering feat under the sun. But as to a Model Republic, or a model anything, the wise among themselves know too well that there is nothing to be said.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The Present Time (February 1, 1850)

Men , World , Hope , History

“Ultimately, the basic issue is whether America will provide global leadership that springs from the unity and the integrity of the American people, or whether extremist doctrines, the manipulation of the truth, will define America's role in the world.
At stake is nothing less than our nation's soul.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Post-Presidency, DNC address (2004)

People , Truth , World , Soul

“I always said that in a country where a legislature, its sessions limited by statute, could alter reality by turning back the clock (I actually saw this done, once, with a long pole pushing on the hour hand), any travesty was possible. I see nothing lately to prove me wrong.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Tastes Like Chicken".

Reality , Country

“Where the world comes in my way — and it comes in my way everywhere — I consume it to quiet the hunger of my egoism. For me you are nothing but — my food, even as I too am fed upon and turned to use by you. We have only one relation to each other, that of usableness, of utility, of use.”

Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own

Dover 2005, p. 296, 297
The Ego and Its Own (1845)

Hunger , World , Food , Way

“I smiled at him but knew it did not reach my eyes. I smiled because he smiled at me, more reflex than emotion. Inside I was nothing. It was a little like being in shock. Shock is nature's insulation, the thing that shuts you down so you can heal, or sometimes so you can die without hurting, or being afraid…”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Unidentified edition/page
Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, Incubus Dreams (2004)

Smile , Nature , Hurt

“It is significant that Communist theory treats the proletariat as though it were a unique branch of the human race. The proletariat is assumed to be a special breed which would almost automatically blossom into pleasant, efficient social-economic living if it could just be liberated from oppressive government. The government is presumed to be nothing more than the tool of an oppressive class of capitalists and consequently, if the capitalist class were destroyed, the need for any kind of government would be obliterated. The Communist leaders have always felt confident that when the proletariat takes over it will not want to oppress anyone and therefore the need for government will be nonexistent.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Confidence

“There is nothing, nothing on Urras that we Anarresti need! We left with empty hands, a hundred and seventy years ago, and we were right. We took nothing. Because there is nothing here but States and their weapons, the rich and their lies, and the poor and their misery. There is no way to act rightly, with a clear heart, on Urras. There is nothing you can do that profit does not enter into, and fear of loss, and the wish for power. You cannot say good morning without knowing which of you is ‘superior’ to the other, or trying to prove it. You cannot act like a brother to other people, you must manipulate them, or command them, or obey them, or trick them. You cannot touch another person, yet they will not leave you alone. There is no freedom. It is a box—Urras is a box, a package, with all the beautiful wrapping of blue sky and meadows and forests and great cities. And you open the box, and what is inside it? A black cellar full of dust, and a dead man. A man whose hand was shot off because he held it out to others. I have been in Hell at last. Desar was right; it is Urras; Hell is Urras.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 11 (pp. 346-347)

People , Fear , Beauty , Way

“I accept nothing on authority. A hypothesis must be backed by reason, or else it is worthless.”

Isaac Asimov book I, Robot

“Reason”, p. 52
I, Robot (1950)

“There's different types of knowledge, and this is where I believe the confusion lies. There's experimental or observational science as we call it. That's using the scientific method: observation, measurement, experiment, testing. That's what produces our technology: computers, spacecraft, jet planes, smoke detectors, looking at DNA, antibiotics, medicines and vaccines. You see, all scientists, whether Creationist or Evolutionist, actually have the same observational or experimental science. It doesn't matter if you're a Creationist or an Evolutionist: you can be a great scientist… But I want us to also understand that molecules-to-man evolution belief has nothing to do with developing technology.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

"Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham" (February 4, 2014)

Understanding , Knowledge , Science

“In antiquity, life was nothing but silence. Noise was really not born before the 19th century, with the advent of machinery. Today noise reigns supreme over human sensibility.”

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) Electronic music pioneer and Futurist painter

Source: 1910's, The Art of Noise', 1913, p. 4

Life , Silence

“What he had done, how he had chosen to spend his energies, really was science. A way of looking, reverencing. And the purpose of all science, like living, which amounts ot the same thing, was not the accumulations of Gnostic power, fixing of formulas for the names of God, stockpiling brutal efficiency, accomplishing the sadistic myth of progress. the purpose of science was to revive and cultivate a perpetual state of wonder. For nothing deserved wonder so much as our capacity to feel it.”

Richard Powers (1957) novelist

The Goldbug Variations, pg. 611

God , Way , Feeling , Science

“The expression can be traced to the Third Centennial Apert, when the gates of several Hundreder maths opened to reveal startling outcomes, e. g.: at Saunt Rambalf's, a mass suicide that had taken place only moments earlier. At Saunt Terramore's, nothing at all — not even human remains. At Saunt Byadin's, a previously unheard-of religious sect…. At Saunt Lesper's, no humans, but a previously undiscovered species of tree-dwelling higher primates.”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

From the definition of "to go Hundred," The Dictionary, 4th edition, A.R. 3000 (Anathem's glossary)
Anathem (2008)

Suicide , Tree

“It's an old idea from the 19th century. It is something that is not relevant to the vibrant, extraordinary, culture that is Quebec as Quebec is an amazing part of Canada. Nationalism is based on a smallness of thought that closes in, that builds up barriers between people, and has nothing to do with the Canada we should be building. It stands against everything my father ever believed.”

Justin Trudeau (1971) 23rd Prime Minister of Canada; eldest son of Pierre Trudeau

Responding to Michael Ignatieff's Quebec nationalism proposal during a CTV interview on Canada AM.
2017

People , Idea , Parting

“I own it gave my picturesque fancies at first a shock, to hear of a steam-boat on Loch Katrine; but I was wrong. Nothing could be a more decisive proof of the increased communication between England and Scotland — and communication is the regal road to improvement of every kind.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Communication , Decision

“The Greeks follow a wrong usage in speaking of coming into being and passing away; for nothing comes into being or passes away, but there is mingling and separation of things that are. So they would be right to call coming into being mixture, and passing away separation.”

Anaxagoras (-500–-428 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

Frag. B 17, quoted in John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy, (1920), Chapter 6.

“Dear premies, I guess this is the last night of this festival, of this Guru Puja and really, what have we understood? Really, in one way, what can we understand? What is there to understand? And it's just like sometimes you just feel, Understand? When I use the word understand … But there is nothing to understand! And if there is something to understand, there is only one thing to understand, and that is to surrender!”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

The essence of everything., Dortmund Germany October 1, 1978, published by the DLM in The Golden Age No 51, February 1979
1970s

Way , Feeling , Understanding , Night

“We live well in the houses—well enough. But we are ruled utterly by fear. There was a time we sailed in ships between the stars, and now we dare not go a hundred miles from home. We keep a little knowledge, and do nothing with it. But once we used that knowledge to weave the pattern of life like a tapestry across night and chaos. We enlarged the chances of life. We did man’s work.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, City of Illusions (1967), Chapter 1

Life , Fear , Home , Star

“The story of the Narmada valley is nothing less than the story of Modern India. Like the tiger in the Belgrade zoo during the NATO bombing, we've begun to eat our own limbs.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Preface to The Cost of Living July 1999.
Articles

“Yet in a relatively short creative life of twenty years or so, Chopin redrew the boundaries of Romantic music, and his self-imposed restriction to the 88 keys of the piano keyboard sublimated nothing less than the aesthetic essence of piano music. It was his total identification with the instrument which, in its radical regeneration of the lyric and the dramatic, fantasy and passion and their unique fusion, shaped a tonal language which united an aristocratic sense of style and formal Classical training and intuition with an ascetic rigor. Chopin’s precisely marshaled trains of thought permitted no experiments, and so he did not ‘wander about’ within his stylistic points of reference as Scriabin was to do. Chopin’s works may seem light and improvisatory, but they are planned in meticulous details, exactly and well calculated.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings about Chopin and Schumann

Life , Music , Sense , Light

“To sum up [Trotsky wrote], "the road to Socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the Slate … The State, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i. e. the most ruthless form of State, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction" ([The Defence of Terrorism] p. 157). It would be difficult indeed to put the matter more plainly. The state of the proletarian dictatorship is depicted by Trotsky as a huge permanent concentration camp in which the government exercises absolute power over every aspect of the citizens’ lives and in particular decides how much work they shall do, of what kind and in what places. Individuals are nothing but labour units. Compulsion is universal, and any organization that is not part of the state must be its enemy, thus the enemy of the proletariat. All this, of course, is in the name of an ideal realm of freedom, the advent of which is expected after an indefinite lapse of historical time.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

pg. 512
Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume II, The Golden Age

Life , Exercises , Freedom , Universe

“Excess of interest in both her own and in the stranger’s personality merge in feminine surrender, the urge to lose herself completely in a human being; but in so doing, she does justice neither to self nor to the humanity of another, and, at the same time, becomes unfit for exercising other duties.
Also connected to the false pursuit of prestige is a perverted desire for totality and inclusiveness, a mania to know everything and thereby to skim the surface of everything and to plunge deeply into nothing. However, such superficiality can never be true humanity.”

Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher

Essays on Woman (1996), The Significance of Woman's Intrinsic Value in National Life (1928)

Justice , Exercises , Time , Personality

“Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all
over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,
your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.”

Thomas Lux (1946–2017) American poet

"A Little Tooth", in Líneas conectadas. Nueva poesía de los Estados Unidos. April Lindner, Editor. Sarabande Books, Louisville, Kentucky. ISBN 978-1-932-51121-5

Love , Way , Learning , Baby

“But though there be naturally a wide difference in point of delicacy between one person and another, nothing tends further to encrease and improve this talent, than practice in a particular art, and the frequent survey or contemplation of a particular species of beauty.”

David Hume book Four Dissertations

Four Dissertations (1757)

Beauty , Art , Nature , Personality

“Law represents from age to age the code of the dominant or ruling class, slowly accumulated, no doubt, and slowly modified, but always added to and always administered by the ruling class. Today the code of the dominant class may perhaps best be denoted by the word Respectability—and if we ask why this code has to a great extent overwhelmed the codes of the other classes and got the law on its side (so far that in the main it characterises those classes who do not conform to it as the criminal classes), the answer can only be: Because it is the code of the classes who are in power. Respectability is the code of those who have the wealth and the command, and as these have also the fluent pens and tongues, it is the standard of modern literature and the press. It is not necessarily a better standard than others, but it is the one that happens to be in the ascendant; it is the code of the classes that chiefly represent modern society; it is the code of the Bourgeoisie. It is different from the Feudal code of the past, of the knightly classes, and of Chivalry; it is different from the Democratic code of the future—of brotherhood and of equality; it is the code of the Commercial age and its distinctive watchword is—property.
The Respectability of today is the respectability of property. There is nothing so respectable as being well-off.”

Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) British poet and academic

Defence of Criminals: A Criticism of Morality (1889)

Age , Law , Literature , Past

“Nothing ever begins.
There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs.
The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and to the tales that preceded that: though as the narrator’s voice recedes the connections will seem to grow more tenuous, for each age will want the tale told as if it were of its own making.
Thus the pagan will be sanctified, the tragic become laughable; great lovers will stoop to sentiment, and demons dwindle to clockwork toys.
Nothing is fixed. In and out the shuttle goes, fact and fiction, mind and matter woven into patterns that may have only this in common: that hidden amongst them is a filigree which will with time become a world.
It must be arbitrary then, the place at which we chose to embark.
Somewhere between a past half forgotten and a future as yet only glimpsed.”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

Part One “Wild Blue Yonder”, Chapter i “Homing”, Section 1 (p. 19; opening words)
(1987), BOOK ONE: IN THE KINGDOM OF THE CUCKOO

Age , World , Spring , Lovers

“Of giving, even when I have nothing”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

“Mrs Hickmann was inclined to forgive Patrick the apparent purposelessness of his life and the sinister pallor of his complexion, when she considered that he has an income of one hundred thousand pounds a year, and came from a family which, although it had done nothing since, had seen the Norman invasion from the winning side.”

Edward St. Aubyn (1960) British writer

Bad News, Chapter 1

Life , Family , Forgiveness

“If nothing is done to counter present trends, the major fault line in American politics will no longer be between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. It will be between the 'establishment'—political insiders, power brokers, the heads of American business, Wall Street, and the mainstream media—and an increasingly mad-as-hell populace determined to 'take back America' from them.”

Robert B. Reich (1946) American political economist

Aftershock https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0307594521: The Next Economy and America's Future, Reich, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (2010), p. 145

Hell , Business , Madness

“(…) To be nothing, to have nothing, to keep nothing for oneself is the greatest gift, the highest generosity.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Nothingness
Source: "I am That." P.107.

“Nothing that has happened has made me feel gloomy or remain depressed. I love my life.”

Luciano Pavarotti (1935–2007) Italian operatic tenor

Pavarotti : My World (1995)

Love , Life , Feeling

“There is, however, nothing wanting to the idleness of a philosopher but a better name, and that meditation, conversation, and reading should be called “work.””

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Il ne manque cependant à l'oisiveté du sage qu'un meilleur nom, et que méditer, parler, lire, et être tranquille s'appelât travailler.
Aphorism 12
Les Caractères (1688), Du mérite personnel

Reading

“Homosexuality seeks to destroy marriage as we know it, unity as we know it, family life as we know it, so how can we endorse that? That is completely outside what God planned for humanity. When God created man, he saw man was alone and added a female mate for him. Why didn't he pick one of the baboons, one of the lions to make his partner? He could have done so. He didn't. Homosexuality is nothing short of sinning against God with impunity as you are going against his will. Homosexuality is wrong, it's from the devil.”

Peter Akinola (1944) Anglican Primate of the Church of Nigeria

Interview in The Christian Science Monitor, 8 January 2007

Life , God , Marriage , Family

“We have the ability…and if, with our faith in our future, we exert ourselves with determination, nothing, I am sure, no obstacles, however formidable or insurmountable they may appear at present, can stop our progress…(if) all work unitedly, keeping our vision clear, and with a firm grasp of our problems.”

Bidhan Chandra Roy (1882–1962) Former Chief Minister of West Bengal, India

In page=101
Remembering Our Leaders: Mahadeo Govind Ranade by Pravina Bhim Sain

Faith , Problem , Appearance , Future

“Isn't there some great, grim irony in the fact that the whole country gets a day off work in honor of a man who struggled against and died to end oppression, even after having re-elected one of the greatest would-be oppressors of the last century? And that the threat of freedom for a minority may have been what finally tipped the electoral scales in Dominar Bush's favor? Yes, I think that's what it is, a great, grim irony. King said, "No one is free until we are all free." Somehow, the Reverend Bernice King has missed that part, as have so many other Americans. All or nothing. Personally, I think that Martin Luther King, Jr. Day should have been suspended this year in recognition of Bush's second term. A nation cannot simultaneously pat itself on the back for granting this group of people freedom and strive to deny freedom to this other group. Or, rather, it can, but it should not be permitted to do so. The vacation has not been earned because the work is not finished.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer

(17 January 2005)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2005

People , Thinking , Freedom , Parting

“He was extremely important to his contemporaries, who wanted nothing more than to see in his the Expected One; they wanted almost to press it upon him and and to force him into the role - but that he then refuses to be that!”

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

Source: 1840s, Two Ethical-Religious Minor Essays (1849), p. 60

“It had some allies. Believe me, there’s nothing so terrible that someone won’t support it.”

China Miéville book Un Lun Dun

Source: Un Lun Dun (2007), Chapter 22, “History Lessons” (p. 90)

Support

“He stood unmoving, wondering at his own abrupt and incomprehensible inability to act. He did not fear damnation. Nor did he give a fig for the common opinion of Mankind. There was nothing to stop him but fear alone—fear that his reasoning was wrong.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 1, “Trinity” (p. 17)

Fear

“Mugabe has destroyed that country while South Africa has stood by and done nothing. The way Mugabe was feted at the inauguration last month was an embarrassing disgrace. But it served well to illustrate very clearly Mbeki's point of view.”

Helen Suzman (1917–2009) South African politician

As quoted in "Democracy? It was better under apartheid, says Helen Suzman" https://web.archive.org/web/20120901223952/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1462042/Democracy-It-was-better-under-apartheid-says-Helen-Suzman.html (15 May 2004), by Jane Flanagan, The Telegraph
2000s

Way , Country

“Even as the Fascist leader, Mussolini never concealed his sympathy and admiration for Communism: he thought highly of Lenin’s ‘brutal energy,’ and saw nothing objectionable in Bolshevik massacres of hostages. He proudly claimed Italian Communism as his child.”

Richard Pipes (1923–2018) American historian

Source: Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994), p. 252

Communication

“I’ve just typed myself into a revolutionary fervor again. Every so often the fury at injustice rises up in me and makes me want to smash something or burn something, but nothing in my immediate environment belongs to me so I have to refrain.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

“Nothing ever astonishes the really simple person.”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From, Light on Carmel: An Anthology from the Works of Brother John of Saint Samson, O.Carm.

Personality

“I am a working man as much as you. My father was as poor as any man in this crowd. He was of your own body, entirely. He boasts not—nor do I—of birth, nor of great family distinctions. What he has made, he has made by his own industry and successful commerce. What I have comes from him, and from my own exertions. I have no interest in the extravagance of government; I have no interest in seeking appointments under any government; I have no interest in pandering to the views of any government; I have nothing to gain by being the tool of any party. I come before you as the friend of my own class and order; as one of the people; as one who would, on all occasions, be the firm defender of your rights, and the asserter of all those privileges to which you are justly entitled. It is on these grounds that I offer myself to your notice; it is on these grounds that I solicit your suffrages.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech during the general election of 1843, quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 113.
1840s

People , Family , Birth , Success

“We found that technological optimism is the common and the most dangerous reaction to our findings… Technology can relieve the symptoms of the problem without affecting the underlying causes. Faith in technology as the ultimate solution to all problems can thus divert our attention from the most fundamental problem— the problem of growth in a finite system- and prevent us from taking effective action to solve it… We would deplore an unreasoned rejection of the benefits of technology as strongly as we argue here against an unreasoned acceptance of them. Perhaps the best summary of our position is the motto of the Sierra Club; not blind opposition to progress but opposition to blind progress.
Taking no action to solve these problems is equivalent of taking strong action. Every day of continued exponential growth brings the world system closer to the ultimate limits of that growth. A decision to do nothing is a decision to increase the risk of collapse.
The way to proceed is clear… [we posses] all that is necessary to create a totally new form of human society… the two missing ingredients are the realistic long-term goal… and the human will to achieve that goal.”

Mihajlo D. Mesarovic (1928) Serbian academic

Source: Mankind at the Turning Point, (1974), p. 88, quoted in: Martin Bridgstock, David Burch, John Forge, John Laurent, Ian Lowe (1998) Science, Technology and Society: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. pp. 245-246

World , Faith , Way , Optimism

“Frances Egan, the school nurse, left her nutrition charts long enough to tell me there was nothing that could have been done. "Evelyn had a rough time with her father," she said. "Once she came in beaten black and blue."
"What did you do for her?"
"I gave her a cup of tea."
"Tea? Why tea, for heaven's sake?"
"Why? Because I know all about it," she said, shaking with anger. "I know more than anyone here what goes on outside — poverty, disease, dope, degeneracy — yet I'm not supposed to give them even a band-aid. I used to plead, bang on my desk, talk myself hoarse arguing with kids, parents, welfare, administration, social agencies. Nobody really heard me. Now I give them tea. At least, that's something."
"But you're a nurse," I said helplessly.
She showed me the Directive from the Board posted on her wall: THE SCHOOL NURSE MAY NOT TOUCH WOUNDS, GIVE MEDICATION, REMOVE FOREIGN PARTICLES FROM THE EYE…
Are we, none of us, then, allowed to touch wounds? What is the teacher's responsibility? And if it begins at all, where does it end?”

Bel Kaufmanová book Up the Down Staircase

Part V, ch. 26 (Sylvia Barrett)
Up the Down Staircase (1965)

Disease , School , Parent , Teachers

“The word science of administration has been used. There are many who object to the term. Now if by science is meant a conceptual scheme of things in which every particularity coveted may be assigned a mathematical value, then administration is not a science. In this sense only astro-physics may be called a science and it is well to remember that mechanical laws of the heavens tell us nothing about the color and composition of the stars and as yet cannot account for some of the disturbances and explosions which seem accidental. If, on the other hand, we may rightly use the term science in connection with a body of exact knowledge derived from experience and observation, and a body of rules or axioms which experience has demonstrated to be applicable in concrete practice, and to work out in practice approximately as forecast, then we may, if we please, appropriately and for convenience, speak of a science of administration. Once, when the great French mathematician, Poincaré, was asked whether Euclidean geometry is true, he replied that the question had no sense but that Euclidean geometry is and still remains the most convenient. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that a science is, among other things, a particular branch of knowledge or study; a recognized department of learning.”

Charles A. Beard (1874–1948) American historian

Source: Philosophy, Science and Art of Public Administration (1939), p. 660-1

Law , Color , Star , Mathematics

“They would talk of nothing but high life, and high-lived company, with other fashionable topics, such as pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses.”

Oliver Goldsmith book The Vicar of Wakefield

Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 9.

Life , Music , Fashion

“Nothing much could happen
Nothing we can't shake
Oh we're absolute beginners
With nothing much at stake
As long as you're still smiling
There's nothing more I need
I absolutely love you
But we're absolute beginners.
But if my love is your love
We're certain to succeed.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Absolute Beginners (1986)
Song lyrics

Love , Smile

“Nothing withstands the influence of wealth. Everything submits to its tyranny, everything cowers at its dominion.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

Source: Social Justice, To the Rich (c. 368), p. 51

Wealth

“My philosophy is that, in life, you have to want something. If you just say "la-la-la" and go through life without a goal, nothing will happen.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Quoted by Eric Thurnauer for Stuff Magazine (November/December 1998)

Life

“Well, there's nothing funnier to me than the French. The French Resistance is probably the biggest mythical joke that ever existed. There were four guys in the French Resistance. They couldn't hand over the Jewish people fast enough. Oh, please, don't tell me about the French. The French have all sorts of secret deals with Saddam and everybody else for two cents a liter. It's an easy target.”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

interview with Nikki Finke http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/43/deadline-finke.php, LA Weekly, September 17, 2004
French Bashing and Francophobia

People , Secret , Guy

“Nothing is more vain than to seek to unite men by a philosophic minimum.”

Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) French philosopher

Integral Humanism, (1936, Notre Dame Edition), p. 262.

Men

“Vegetarianism is not only the most powerful political response we can make to industrialized food. It's a necessary prerequisite to reforming it. To quit eating meat is to dismantle the global food apparatus at its foundation. … Until we make that leap, until we create a culinary culture in which the meat-eaters must do the apologizing, the current proposals will be nothing more than gestures that turn the fork into an empty symbol rather than a real tool for environmental change.”

James E. McWilliams (1968) American historian

"Vegetarianism Is a Major Step for Environmental Change", in The Washington Post (16 November 2009) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/15/AR2009111502210.html.

Food , Change

“I have nothing to say to him [Ronald Reagan], because he is mad. He is foolish. He is an Israeli dog.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Interview with Marie Colvin, 20 June 1986. Sun-Sentinel http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1986-06-20/news/8602060350_1_moammar-gadhafi-white-house-wife

Dogs , Madness

“The Revolution is in the individual spirit, or it is nowhere. It is for all, or it is nothing. If it is seen as having any end, it will never truly begin. We can’t stop here. We must go on. We must take the risks.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 12 (p. 359)

“To have felt too much is to end in feeling nothing.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

A comment regarding her divorce from Sinclair Lewis, quoted by Vincent Sheean in Dorothy and Red (1963)

Sad , Depressing , Hurtful , Feeling

“It is a major defect of our present organized system and the economy of abundance that, without providing great goals, it has taken away some of the important real necessities, leaving people with nothing to do.
The void is soon filled. Behavior like going into debt on the installment plan, gives an artificial but then real necessity, something to do, paying up. This is the Rat Race, but I doubt that it would be run if people did not need its justifying necessity, for the commodities themselves are not that attractive.”

Paul Goodman book Growing Up Absurd

Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), p. 154.

People , Behavior

“Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment out of nothing.”

Ralph George Hawtrey (1879–1975) British economist

Ralph M. Hawtrey as assistant secretary of the British Treasury, quoted in: Robert Latham Owen (1939), National economy and the banking system of the United States. p. 102

“While man is growing, life is in decrease;
And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.
Our birth is nothing but our death begun.”

Edward Young Night-Thoughts

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 717.

Life , Death , Birth

“If indeed the literal meaning, understood as it is spoken, should offer some benefit, we will have readily at hand what we need to make the object of our attention. But if something that is said in a hidden fashion, with certain allegories and enigmas, should yield nothing of benefit according to the readily apparent sense, we will turn such words as these over and over in our mind.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

Commentary on the Song of Songs, As translated by Margaret M. Mitchell in Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics (2010)

Fashion , Sense

“This one is too elegant, too shiny, like jewelry. It seeks applause. This is clear to me, but difficult to explain, which is what makes abstraction so fascinating. In one sense, abstract art is absolutely nothing, stupid. In 100 years, maybe people will just think it's garbage. But somehow we see something in it; we have a sense of quality. [searching for an illustration of his point, Richter leafs through a catalog to find some of his 'gray monochromes']. I was doing these [monochromes] when I was getting divorced. When you feel totally empty, you do this - but then I saw that one picture was actually better than another. Both were miserable, but the difference was interesting. I loved this: that there must be something, some higher faculty, some progressive sensibility that we find in abstraction. But it is impossible to describe.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

Love , People , Stupidity , Art

“Of course, my landscapes are not only beautiful or nostalgic, with a Romantic or classical suggestion of lost Paradises, but above all 'untruthful'... By 'untruthful' I mean the glorifying way we look at Nature – Nature, which in all its forms is always against us, because it knows no meaning, no pity, no sympathy, because it knows nothing and is absolutely mindless: the total antithesis of ourselves.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 108, note 61

Beauty , Way , Nature

“Has it ever occurred to you…that parents are nothing but overgrown kids until their children drag them into adulthood? Usually kicking and screaming?”

Stephen King book Christine

Pt. 1, Ch. 3
Christine (1983)

Children , Parent , Adulthood

“I should want to go home, like Fenella. I should be so tired of the shambles here, the obscurantism, the colour-prejudice, the laziness and ignorance, as to desire nothing better than a headship in a cold stone country school in England. But I love this country. I feel protective towards it. Sometimes just before dawn breaks, I feel that somehow I enclose it, contain it. I feel that it needs me. This is absurd, because snakes and scorpions are ready to bite me, a drunken Tamil is prepared to knife me, the Chinese in the town would like to spit at me, some day a Malay boy will run amok and try to tear me apart. But it doesn’t matter. I want to live here; I want to be wanted. Despite the sweat, despite the fever, the prickly heat, the mosquitoes, the terrorists, the fools at the bar of the club, despite Fenella.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Time for a Tiger (1956)

Love , School , Fools , Feeling

“I cried out. I turned the pages, one after the other, in a frenzy. I could not believe what I saw, would not believe it. For the pages of the book were blank.
Oh, yes, there had been writing, this much I could see, but the inks had faded. Now there were only faint smudges and marks here and there on the yellowness. And I could tell nothing from them…
It came to me, as I walked, how bitter the irony of the Book had been which had said: Herein the Truth. For it had a truth of its own in its bleached barrenness. What was truth except something which faded, lost its shape, grew unreadable and indistinguishable, at last a blank page for men to write on what they wished.”

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

Book Three, Part II “The Edge of the Sea”, Chapter 2 (p. 357)
The Birthgrave (1975)

Men , Truth , Books

“The ignorance of even the best-informed investor about the more remote future is much greater than his knowledge, and he cannot but be influenced to a degree which would seem wildly disproportionate to anyone who really knew the future, and be forced to seek a clue mainly here to trends further ahead. But if this is true of the best-informed, the vast majority of those who are concerned with the buying and selling of securities know almost nothing whatever about what they are doing. They do not possess even the rudiments of what is required for a valid judgement, and are the prey of hopes and fears easily aroused by transient events and as easily dispelled.”

John Maynard Keynes book A Treatise on Money

A Treatise on Money, Volume II (1930), pp. 360–61

Fear , Hope , Knowledge , Future

“He's a wonderful talker, who has the art
Of telling you nothing in a great harangue.”

Molière The Misanthrope

C'est un parleur étrange, et qui trouve toujours
L'art de ne vous rien dire avec de grands discours.
Act II, sc. iv
Le Misanthrope (1666)

Art

“There is nothing difficult about becoming a sage, and nothing false about transcending the world of appearances.”

Li Zhi (philosopher) (1527–1602) Chinese philosopher

[Saussy, Haun, Lee, Pauline, Handler-Spitz, Rivi, A Book to Burn and a Book to Keep (Hidden): Selected Writings, 2016, Columbia University Press, 0231541538, https://books.google.com/books?id=4Xm0CwAAQBAJ, Prefaces, 4]

World , Appearance , Falseness

“He sometimes tells himself that there is nothing more to be said, simply because he won’t get around to saying it.—How contemptible!”

Elias Canetti (1905–1994) Bulgarian-born Swiss and British jewish modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer

J. Agee, trans. (1989), p. 92
Das Geheimherz der Uhr [The Secret Heart of the Clock] (1987)

“All the difference in the world are as nothing compared to this: the difference between being you and being me. It makes the chasms between gods and men, between men and women, between dead and alive, seem almost trivial.You are you. She is someone else. Between lie the stars.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Source: The Lonely Dead (2004), Ch. 14

Women , Men , God , Lie

“There is no solid satisfaction in any career for a woman like myself. There is no home, no true freedom, no hope, no joy, no expectation for tomorrow, no contentment. I would rather cook a meal for a man and bring him his slippers and feel myself in the protection of his arms than have all the citations and awards and honors I have received worldwide, including the Ribbon of Legion of Honor and my property and my bank accounts. They mean nothing to me. And I am only one among the millions of sad women like myself.”

Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) Novelist

Ask Them Yourself
1970s-

Women , Sadness , Hope , Feeling

“Power is in nature the essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance

Soul , Nature , Tree , Strong

“Nothing's gonna stop me from floating.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

"Father Lucifer".
Songs

“And are there no laws of moral health? Can they be outraged and the penalty not paid? Let a man turn out of the bright and bustling Broadway, out of the mad revel of riches and the restless, unripe luxury of ignorant men whom sudden wealth has disordered like exhilarating gas; let him penetrate through sickening stench the lairs of typhus, the dens of small-pox, the coverts of all loathsome disease and unimaginable crimes; let him see the dull, starved, stolid, lowering faces, the human heaps of utter woe, and, like Jefferson in contemplating slavery a hundred years ago in Virginia, he will murmur with bowed head, 'I tremble for this city when I remember that God is just'. Is his justice any surer in a tenement-house than it is in a State? Filth in the city is pestilence. Injustice in the State is civil war. 'Gentlemen', said George Mason, a friend and neighbor of Jefferson's, in the Convention that framed the Constitution, 'by an inscrutable chain of causes and effects Providence punishes national sins by national calamities'. 'Oh no. gentlemen, it is no such thing', replied John Rutledge of South Carolina. 'Religion and humanity have nothing to do with this question. Interest is the governing principle with nations'. The descendants of John Rutledge live in the State which quivers still with the terrible tread of Sherman and his men. Let them answer! Oh seaports and factories, silent and ruined! Oh barns and granaries, heaps of blackened desolation! Oh wasted homes, bleeding hearts, starving mouths! Oh land consumed in the fire your own hands kindled! Was not John Rutledge wrong, was not George Mason right, that prosperity which is only money in the purse, and not justice or fair play, is the most cruel traitor, and will cheat you of your heart's blood in the end?”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

Men , Money , God , War

“In spite of everything, I feel that I am filled with courage; I am sure that God is not going to abandon me. [-]Oh. I want to refuse Him [Jesus] nothing, and even though I feel sad and alone on this earth, He still remains with me. And has not St. Teresa said: God alone suffices.”

Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897) French Discalced Carmelite nun

October 8, 1887
General Correspondence

God , Sadness , Feeling , Courage

“Lastly, let each of us consider how far he is bound in duty to others, and in good faith pay what we owe. In the same way, let the people pay all due honour to their rulers, submit patiently to their authority, obey their laws and orders, and decline nothing which they can bear without sacrificing the favour of God. Let rulers, again, take due charge of their people, preserve the public peace, protect the good, curb the bad, and conduct themselves throughout as those who must render an account of their office to God, the Judge of all… Let the aged also, by their prudence and their experience, (in which they are far superior,) guide the feebleness of youth, not assailing them with harsh and clamorous invectives but tempering strictness with ease and affability. Let servants show themselves diligent and respectful in obeying their masters, and this not with eye-service, but from the heart, as the servants of God. Let masters also not be stern and disobliging to their servants, nor harass them with excessive asperity, nor treat them with insult, but rather let them acknowledge them as brethren and fellow-servants of our heavenly Master, whom, therefore, they are bound to treat with mutual love and kindness. Let every one, I say, thus consider what in his own place and order he owes to his neighbours, and pay what he owes. Moreover, we must always have a reference to the Lawgiver, and so remember that the law requiring us to promote and defend the interest and convenience of our fellow-men, applies equally to our minds and our hands.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book II Chapter 8. Spurgeon.org. Retrieved 2015-02-25.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

Love , Men , God , People

“… a single generation enamoured of foreign ways is almost enough in history to risk the whole continuity of civilization and learning. Ages of accumulation are entrusted to the frail bark of each passing epoch by the hand of the past, desiring to make over its treasures to the use of the future. It takes a certain stubbornness, a doggedness of loyalty, even a modicum of unreasonable conservatism maybe, to lose nothing in the long march of the ages; and, even when confronted with great empires, with a sudden extension of the idea of culture, or with the supreme temptation of a new religion, to hold fast what we have, adding to it only as much as we can healthfully and manfully carry.”

Sister Nivedita (1867–1911) Scots-Irish social worker, author, teacher and a disciple of Swami Vivekananda

p. 2 https://archive.org/stream/mythsofthehindus00niveuoft#page/n21/mode/2up
Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists (1913)

Age , Religion , Way , History

““It’s tragic,” he said.
“God killed them with His hurricane,” she said.
“God had nothing to do with it.”
“Actually I agree with you, though for reasons quite different from yours.””

James K. Morrow book Towing Jehovah

Source: Towing Jehovah (1994), Chapter 4, “Dirge” (p. 69)

God

“Nothing is more repugnant to me than brotherly feelings grounded in the common baseness people see in one another.”

Milan Kundera The Joke

The Joke (1967)

People , Feeling

“I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't really thin at one point, because I was. But it had nothing to do with not eating. I'm not saying that I have more problems than everyone else, but people's weight fluctuates, and five or ten pounds is a lot on me.”

Nicole Richie (1981) American television personality, musician, actress, and author

People , Lie , Problem

“I felt I had nothing more to learn. It was the same thing wrapped up in different packaging again and again. I am not a brilliant dancer at all. But my packaging is great. You know, I have been a hippie all my life. And the dreams of the sixties that I had of living in a commune, of sharing, of never having more than I can use, of living life joyfully in nature -- that was the spirit that was inside me. And in the isolation of being a dancer I thought where is the giving, where is the sharing, with me sitting so far in a cold place? I knew I had to get back and I had to share what life had given me through dance. I was willing to give up my dance and work and beg to realise this dream. Because it would still be my dream, it would still be dance but how much joy it would give so many bodies.”

Protima Bedi (1948–1998) Indian model and dancer

After learning Odissi dance, she toured all over the world performing Odissi dance and then settled in Switzerland but came back to establish a dance school. Quoted in in "I have been a hippie all my life".

Life , Dreams , Communication , Nature

“There is much else in the literary idiom of nature-philosophy: nothing-buttery, for example, always part of the minor symptomatology of the bogus.”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

1960s, Review of Teilhard de Chardin's "The Phenomenon of Man", 1961

Nature , Parting

“On one level, wisdom is nothing more than the ability to take your own advice.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Quoted in Tim Ferris, "Tools of Titans" (2016), p. 454
2010s

Wisdom

“We shall all respect the principles of each other and do nothing that would be regarded as an act of oppression to any portion of the people”

Alexander Mackenzie (1822–1892) 2nd Prime Minister of Canada

Speech to the House of Commons, March 10, 1875
Variant: We shall all respect the principles of each other and do nothing that would be regarded as an act of oppression to any portion of the people

People

“What you need is good management with farmer power. Good management gives this power the right direction and thrust. Nothing can stop the farmers then. Least of all the Multi national Companies|MNCs]].”

Verghese Kurien (1921–2012) Indian founder of dairy-cooperative Amul

Quote, Amul builder Verghese Kurien's best quotes and pictures from Economic Times archives

“The Conservative Party is the parent of trade unionism, just as it is the author of the Factory Acts. At every stage in the history of the nineteenth century it is to Toryism that trade unionism has looked for help and support against the oppressions of the Manchester School of liberalism, which cared nothing for the interests of the state, and regarded men as brute beasts whose labour could be bought and sold at the cheapest price, irrespective of all other considerations.”

F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead (1872–1930) British politician

Introduction to H. Hills and M. Woods, Industrial Unrest: A Practical Solution (1914)

Men , School , History , Support

“Little miss dismissed can't miss like a detuned radio

I cannot believe you when you tell me what you know

And nothing will be broken if your house is made of stone

But you know as I do it will never be a home

We want it, they got it

They claim we'll die without it

But something tells me they are wrong

So what will you do when they call your name and you're not ready to go?

Everyone will stare at you and tell you what you know

That you're in too deep and you can't quite keep your secrets, one and all

We might just make it after all, on our own

We might just make it after all

But we had one foot on the gas and one foot in the grave

Everyone was laughing when we said we had it made”

Tomas Kalnoky (1980) American musician

"One Foot on the Gas, One Foot in the Grave" from "Somewhere in the Between" (2007) http://risc.perix.co.uk/lyrics/sm/sitb/04/

Secret , Home , Housing

“I've lost myself in my work many times. If you love what you do, this can be a Zen thing, where past and future recede to a vanishing point and leave nothing but the perfect vexing, challenging, beguiling now.”

John Vorhaus

Source: The Albuquerque Turkey (2011), Chapter 17

Love , Time , Past , Future

“Blessed are they who have nothing to say, and who cannot be persuaded to say it.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Speech at the banquet for Grand Duke Alexis, 11 November 1871 at the Revere House Hotel in Boston, p. 102 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=YRmn-_vXZ58C&pg=PA102&dq=persuaded
Cf. George Eliot 1879: Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact

“Arms trade. If there was a legitimate trade, they'd sell those things - guns and bombs - in a supermarket. It would be like a cosmetics demonstration, and you'd have a little bit of shopping music in the background. And so, here's our arms trade demonstrator. 'Hello, and welcome to our new "Twilight of the World" range - our stunning new collection for nuclear winter. Now, for those persistent racial problems, why not try our new ethnic cleanser, "Pogrom"? Apply vigorously to the affected area, and then wipe off the face of the earth. For persistent outbreaks, to eliminate those last spots of resistance, why not try our new "I Can't Believe It's Not a Kalashnikov"? Go on, leaders, treat yourself. Tell yourself "I want it, I need it, I'll have it". Now, for those particularly sensitive areas, why not try our new range, "U. N."? It's entirely cosmetic; it does nothing. Apply half-heartedly with our new hand-wringing cream. Now, people often come up to me and say "Can you save my face?" Well, I can. So for those secret little deals - those secret little Iraqi liaisons - why not try "Embargo", the mark of the middleman? Now, for a touch of mystery, why not visit the "Missing Body Shop"? Collect your free nail remover and watch your problems disappear. Now, you're probably sitting there thinking "Oh, I'm such a hideous old blood-soaked dictator of a thing; nobody will deal with me". How wrong you are! We are sole suppliers to the US government of "Turn-a-Blind-Eye Liner" - use always in conjunction with "Oil of Kuwaiti", a touch of "Massacre" and blusher. Oh, you won't need that. I'm Marlene from the House of Charnel. Thank you for your time and patience. And for that finishing touch - for those romantic evenings when you really want to take the enemy out - why not try our stunning new nerve gas, "Paralyse" by Calvin Klein.' (Linda Live 1993)”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

Stand-up

People , Secret , World , Music

“Nothing is more stimulating for self-education than working in a new area.”

Eric R. Kandel (1929) American neuropsychiatrist

In Search of Memory (2006)

Education

“The man is nothing, the work — all. (December 1875)”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

L'homme n'est rien, l'oeuvre – tout
Slightly misquoted in "The Red-Headed League" by Arthur Conan Doyle as L'homme c'est rien – l'oeuvre c'est tout.
Correspondence, Letters to George Sand

Quotes about nothing page 47

Quotes about nothing
page 47