Quotes about nothing (10000 quotes, page 54)

“Through the vote, you'll change nothing in this country. Nothing, absolutely nothing. We'll only get change, unfortunately, when we go into a civil war here someday and do a work the military regime didn't do, killing as much as thirty thousand people, starting with FHC. It's all right if some innocent people die. Innocent people die in many wars.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

Referring to the then-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) at the program Câmera Aberta at Band on 23 May 1999. O dia que Bolsonaro quis matar FHC, sonegar impostos e declarar guerra civil http://www.gazetadopovo.com.br/politica/republica/o-dia-que-bolsonaro-quis-matar-fhc-sonegar-impostos-e-declarar-guerra-civil-8mtm0u0so6pk88kqnqo0n1l69. Gazeta do Povo (10 October 2017).

War , People , Change , Country

“This is a gimcrack
That can get nothing but new fashions on you.”

John Fletcher The Elder Brother

Act III, scene 3.
The Elder Brother (c. 1625; published 1637)

Fashion

“"You don't understand," he said, "who I am or what I am. I'll show you. By Heaven! I'll show you." Then he put his open palm over his face and withdrew it. The centre of his face became a black cavity. "Here," he said. He stepped forward and handed Mrs. Hall something which she, staring at his metamorphosed face, accepted automatically. Then, when she saw what it was, she screamed loudly, dropped it, and staggered back. The nose—it was the stranger's nose! pink and shining—rolled on the floor.Then he removed his spectacles, and everyone in the bar gasped. He took off his hat, and with a violent gesture tore at his whiskers and bandages. For a moment they resisted him. A flash of horrible anticipation passed through the bar. "Oh, my Gard!" said some one. Then off they came.It was worse than anything. Mrs. Hall, standing open-mouthed and horror-struck, shrieked at what she saw, and made for the door of the house. Everyone began to move. They were prepared for scars, disfigurements, tangible horrors, but nothing! The bandages and false hair flew across the passage into the bar, making a hobbledehoy jump to avoid them. Everyone tumbled on everyone else down the steps. For the man who stood there shouting some incoherent explanation, was a solid gesticulating figure up to the coat-collar of him, and then—nothingness, no visible thing at all!”

H. G. Wells book The Invisible Man

Source: The Invisible Man (1897), Chapter 7: The Unveiling of the Stranger

Understanding , Housing , Falseness

“Nothing but truth is lovely, nothing fair.”

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711) French poet and critic

Rien n'est beau que le vrai : le vrai seul est aimable.
Epistle 9

Love , Truth

“You want to do something that shows some type individuality and talent and imagination ¿ at the same time, you want to be truthful to the predecessors, because obviously the audience liked something about them and you have to replicate that experience to a certain extent. Not to just go ahead and make something that¿s completely different and ruin a franchise. At the same time, you don't want to be embarrassed in front of your peers and look like you¿re just copying something, and there's nothing individual. It's a very tricky balance. There are pressures, because you¿re going to be compared to the predecessors.”

Renny Harlin (1959) Finnish film director and film producer

Interview With Renny Harlin http://www.ign.com/articles/2001/04/27/interview-with-renny-harlin (April 27, 2001)

Truth , Imagination , Time

“So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find some one to worship.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

“This album is one of the best albums in the past 20 years. There's nothing that touches this album. And that sounds like I'm being cocky, but I'm just so excited.”

Brandon Flowers (1981) American indie rock singer

On Sam's Town
Montgomery, James (May 2, 2006). "Killers' Next LP Will Show Strong Influence Of ... Bruce Springsteen!?" http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1529924/20060501/killers_the.jhtml MTV.com Retrieved 2007-12-11

Past

“The people itself ( and I do not mean the 'masses') has always given art its essential style. The artist merely clarifies and fullfils the will of the people. But when the people does not know what it wants, or worst of all, wants nothing.... then its artists, driven to seeking their own forms, remain isolated, and become martyrs... Folk art – that is, the feeling of people for artistic form – can arise again only when the whole jumble of worn-out art concepts of the nineteenth century has been wiped from the memory of generations.”

Franz Marc (1880–1916) German painter

Max Beckmann's opinion on this issue you find in: 'Quotes About Franz Marc', below
Source: 1915 - 1916, 100 Aphorisms', Franz Marc (1915), p. 445-446

People , Art , Feeling , Memory

“Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried my uncle Toby, — but nothing to this. — For my own part, I could not have a heart to curse my dog so.”

Laurence Sterne book The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Book III, Ch. 11.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767)

Dogs , Heart , Parting

“Fair use is not a law. There's nothing in law.”

Jack Valenti (1921–2007) President of the MPAA

Interview in Harvard Political Review (2002)

Law

“They may signify wealth, but they can actually mean so much more-like committment, family, and love. And there's nothing like a perfect diamond to remind you that you'll never be perfect - the truth is, all you can do is try.”

Nicole Richie book The Truth About Diamonds

Source: The Truth About Diamonds (2005), p. 224

Love , Truth , Family , Perfection

“My dad turned 40 in October 1967 … in April '68 Martin Luther King was killed. In June '68 Robert Kennedy was killed. And in the fall of '68, my dad's mother died. He was left, on an existential level, saying, "This is what I am. I've got the love of my students and I've got nothing else. My country is going to hell."”

Alec Baldwin (1954) American actor, writer, producer, and comedian

After 1968, he was never the same again. All the air went out of him.
As quoted in "Smart Alec" by Alec Gross, in New York magazine, Vol. 30, No. 35 (24 November 1997), p. 43.

Love , Hell , Country

“Nothing reminds us of an awakening more than rain.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Rain http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rain-199/
From the poems written in English

“I think of the good, decent, peace-loving people I have known by the thousands, and I wonder. How many of them are so afflicted with the wasting disease of normalcy that, even as they declare for the peace, their hands reach out with an instinctive spasm… in the direction of their comforts, their home, their security, their income, their future, their plans—that five-year plan of studies, that ten-year plan of professional status, that twenty-year plan of family growth and unity, that fifty-year plan of decent life and honorable natural demise. “Of course, let us have the peace,” we cry, “but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties.” And because we must encompass this and protect that, and because at all costs—at all costs—our hopes must march on schedule, and because it is unheard of that in the name of peace a sword should fall, disjoining that fine and cunning web that our lives have woven, because it is unheard of that good men should suffer injustice or families be sundered or good repute be lost—because of this we cry peace and cry peace, and there is no peace. There is no peace because there are no peacemakers. There are no makers of peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war—at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.”

Daniel Berrigan (1921–2016) American Catholic priest, peace activist, and poet

No Bars to Manhood (1971), p. 49.

Love , Life , Death , Men

“Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is nothing but the performance of a trained dog on very shaky ground.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Diary of an Unknown (1988), On Invisibility

Religion , Dogs , Hope , Training

“Knowledge isolates phenomena and things to observe with.... nothing is isolatable or can be removed from its environment. Anything which becomes isolated ceases to exist. It is like the violent refusal of someone to play a game in which everyone cheats.”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990) not-paged

Game , Knowledge , Cheating

“I have nothing good to say about Donald Trump as president.”

Penn Jillette (1955) American magician

2010s, Interview with David Marchese (2018)

“Nothing more shameless is than Appetite,
Who still, whatever anguish load our breast,
Makes us remember in our own despite
Both food and drink.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

VII. 216–218 (tr. P. S. Worsley).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Food , Drink

“The tendency of modern physics is to resolve the whole material universe into waves, and nothing but waves. These waves are of two kinds: bottled-up waves, which we call matter, and unbottled waves, which we call radiation or light. If annihilation of matter occurs, the process is merely that of unbottling imprisoned wave-energy and setting it free to travel through space. These concepts reduce the whole universe to a world of light, potential or existent, so that the whole story of its creation can be told with perfect accuracy and completeness in the six words: ‘God said, Let there be light’.”

James Jeans book The Mysterious Universe

The Mysterious Universe (1930)

God , World , Travel , Light

“You have "done all you could" to save yourself; and yet you have accomplished nothing. Fly, then, to Christ, — to Christ, just as you are, just as unworthy — to Christ now, "while it is called to-day." Be assured you are welcomed to all His benefits.”

Ichabod Spencer (1798–1854) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 82.

Christ , Flying

“Beauty is nothing other than the promise of happiness.”

Stendhal (1783–1842) French writer

La beauté n'est que la promesse du bonheur.
Source: De L'Amour (On Love) (1822), Ch. 17, footnote

Beauty , Happiness

“Jesus wept once; possibly more than once. There are times when God asks nothing of His children except silence, patience, and tears.”

Charles Seymour Robinson (1829–1899) American pastor, editor and compiler of hymns

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 584.

God , Children , Tear , Silence

“Nothing lulls and inebriates like money; when you have a lot, the world seems a better place than it actually is.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Ничто так не усыпляет и не опьяняет, как деньги; когда их много, то мир кажется лучше, чем он есть.
Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

Money , World

“How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing. It seems still more impossible that a quarrel which has already been settled in principle should be the subject of war.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast (27 September 1938), quoted in "Prime Minister on the Issues", The Times (28 September 1938), p. 10
Referring to the Czechoslovakia crisis
Prime Minister

War , People , Country

“There is nothing important except people. A person is defined solely by the extent of his influence over other people, by the sphere of his interrelationships; and morality is an utterly meaningless term unless defined as the good one does to others, the fulfilling of one’s function in the sociopolitical whole.”

Ursula K. Le Guin book The Lathe of Heaven

Source: The Lathe of Heaven (1971), Chapter 5 (Haber)

People , Personality

“Privacy has currently become a hot button issue, but I recognized years ago that there was a problem with the government having access to too much information on the citizens without establishing probable cause before they gathered it. And I started pursuing that. There were 400 private and public institutions around this country that were trying to access drones for surveillance purposes. It was not to protect us from harm, it was not to protect us from terrorists. There was nothing in statute that described what drones could be used for, what kind of information they could gather, what they could with that information once they gathered it.”

Matt Rosendale (1960) Member of the Montana House of Representatives

An Exclusive Interview with Congressional Candidate Matt Rosendale http://www.freedomsdiscourse.com/2015/05/24/an-exclusive-interview-with-congressional-candidate-matt-rosendale/ (May 24, 2015)

Problem , Country

“I can entertain the proposition that life is a metaphor for boxing — for one of those bouts that go on and on, round following round, jabs, missed punches, clinches, nothing determined, again the bell and again and you and your opponent so evenly matched it’s impossible not to see that your opponent is you… Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

On Boxing (1987)

Life , Box

“Black unemployment is terrible. The black frame of mind is terrible, they're depressed, they're down — Obama's not doing anything for 'em. How is that hoax and change workin' for ya? They're all livid. I mean, they thought there were gonna be an exact 180-degree economic reversal and it's done nothing but get bad for everybody, but they're especially upset about it because they look at him as one of them, and now they feel abandoned. And I'm sure Tiger Woods' choice of females not helping 'em out with their attitudes there either.”

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

On the Black state of mind, The Rush Limbaugh Show, December 8, 2009 http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200912080019

Feeling , Change , Help

“Borrowing a chapter from the Nazis, they believe that the more often a lie is repeated, the more people are prone to accept it as truth. Nothing is too scandalous for them, and I am constantly amazed at the fact that at one time I was a close associate of people capable of such deceitful behavior.”

Phillip Abbott Luce (1935–1998)

As quoted in “Escape Artist: Recalling a YAF hero—the unlikely, liberating journey of Phillip Abbott Luce”, Shawn Steel, California Political Review, July-August (2000) pp. 23-28

People , Truth , Lie , Behavior

“One must not always think that feeling is everything. Art is nothing without form.”

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

12 August 1846
Correspondence, Letters to Madame Louise Colet

Art , Feeling , Thinking

“If there's one thing you can say about mankind, there's nothing kind about man.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

"Misery is the River of the World", Blood Money (2002).

“Two hundred years ago there were two distinct and separate streams of human life running through this country. They stood at opposite extremes of ethnological classification: all black on the one side, all white on the other. Now, between these two extremes, an intermediate race has arisen, which is neither white nor black, neither Caucasian nor Ethiopian, and this intermediate race is constantly increasing. I know it is said that marital alliance between these races is unnatural, abhorrent and impossible; but exclamations of this kind only shake the air. They prove nothing against a stubborn fact like that which confronts us daily and which is open to the observation of all. If this blending of the two races were impossible we should not have at least one-fourth of our colored population composed of persons of mixed blood, ranging all the way from a dark-brown color to the point where there is no visible admixture. Besides, it is obvious to common sense that there is no need of the passage of laws, or the adoption of other devices, to prevent what is in itself impossible.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1880s, The Future of the Colored Race (1886)

Life , Law , Color , Way

“Life is filled with holes
Johnny's laying there in his sperm coffin
The angel looks down at him and says "Oh, pretty boy
Can't you show me nothing but surrender?”

Patti Smith (1946) American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist

Land
Lyrics

Life , Angels , Boy

“How many times, have I had to seat women whom I received at audiences next to me, rather than facing me, in order to avoid general embarrassment? Nothing should compel us to suffer such trials. It puts the nerves of men and the modesty of women to a severe test.”

Habib Bourguiba (1903–2000) Tunisian politician

Women , Men , Suffering , Time

“Equally unavailing is the insistence that the statute is designed to prevent the circulation of scandal which tends [p722] to disturb the public peace and to provoke assaults and the commission of crime. Charges of reprehensible conduct, and in particular of official malfeasance, unquestionably create a public scandal, but the theory of the constitutional guaranty is that even a more serious public evil would be caused by authority to prevent publication. To prohibit the intent to excite those unfavorable sentiments against those who administer the Government is equivalent to a prohibition of the actual excitement of them, and to prohibit the actual excitement of them is equivalent to a prohibition of discussions having that tendency and effect, which, again, is equivalent to a protection of those who administer the Government, if they should at any time deserve the contempt or hatred of the people, against being exposed to it by free animadversions on their characters and conduct. There is nothing new in the fact that charges of reprehensible conduct may create resentment and the disposition to resort to violent means of redress, but this well understood tendency did not alter the determination to protect the press against censorship and restraint upon publication. […] The danger of violent reactions becomes greater with effective organization of defiant groups resenting exposure, and if this consideration warranted legislative interference with the initial freedom of publication, the constitutional protection would be reduced to a mere form of words.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
Judicial opinions

People , Peace , Freedom , Evil

“I used to be an atheist, until I realized I had nothing to shout during blowjobs. "Oh Random Chance! Oh Random Chance!"”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

just doesn't cut it….
DragonCon, 2000
This quote is knowingly or otherwise lifted from Bill Hicks' comedy routine, or vice versa.

Chance

“Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to Abigail Adams (15 April 1776) http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/aea/cfm/doc.cfm?id=L17760415ja
1770s

Religion

“tt>echo 'ICK, NOTHING WORKED!!! You may have to diddle the includes.';;

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

Source code, <code>Configure</code>

“A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in.”

Robert Orben (1928) American magician and writer

Bill Husted (April 27, 2008) "Local legal eagle stages sendup", The Denver Post, p. B-03.
Attributed

“Mrs Prentice: Are you ashamed of the fact that you write to strange men?
Prentice: There's nothing furtive in my relationship with the editor of The Guardian.”

Joe Orton (1933–1967) English playwright and author

What the Butler Saw (1969), Act I

Men

“The theory is the result of listening to the problem. When the theory acquires a life of its own because some people like it more than the real world, all kinds of uninspiring, uninteresting things happen, so the key is both to listen to the problem and to study the theory. But always remember that just as much theory is bunk as there are buggy solutions. There is nothing more wrong with "theory" than "solutions" – both their quality and their applicability are orthogonal to their existence.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: "Choose the Right Language" in "Tutorial" by Norvig and Pitman http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/99d41ab4a42978b1 (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Life , People , World , Problem

“Participation in parliamentary politics has affected the Socialist labour movement like an insidious poison. It destroyed the belief in the necessity of constructive Socialist activity and, worst of all, the impulse to self-help, by inoculating people with the ruinous delusion that salvation always comes from above.
Thus, in place of the creative Socialism of the old International, there developed a sort of substitute product which has nothing in common with real Socialism but the name. Socialism steadily lost its character of a cultural ideal, which was to prepare the peoples for the dissolution of capitalist society, and, therefore, could not let itself be halted by the artificial frontiers of the national states. In the minds of the leaders of this new phase of the Socialist movement the interests of the national state were blended more and more with the alleged aims of their party, until at last they became unable to distinguish any definite boundaries between them. So inevitably the labour movement was gradually incorporated in the equipment of the national state and restored to this equilibrium which it had actually lost before.”

Rudolf Rocker book Anarcho-Syndicalism

Source: Anarcho-Syndicalism (1938), Ch. 4 "The Objectives of Anarcho-syndicalism"

People , Help

“Punishment and reward proceed from basically the same psychological model, one that conceives of motivation as nothing more than the manipulation of behavior.”

Alfie Kohn (1957) American author and lecturer

Punished by Rewards

Behavior , Motivation

“I know what they think they seek. But I know it to be a lie. Listen to me, Arren. You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man nor any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose…. That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself? Would you give up the craft of your hands, and the passion of your heart, and the light of sunrise and sunset, to buy safety for yourself—safety forever? That is what they seek to do on Wathort and Lorbanery and elsewhere. That is the message that those who know how to hear have heard: By denying life you may deny death and live forever!—And this message I do not hear, Arren, for I will not hear it. I will not take the counsel of despair.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 8, "The Children of the Open Sea" (Ged)

Life , Death , Lie , Thinking

“The demolition of the Babri Masjid was the last straw. Naseem (1995) was almost like an epitaph. After the film, I had really nothing to say. I needed to regain my faith and retain my sanity. So I decided to travel around India and document it on a video camera”

Saeed Akhtar Mirza (1943) Indian film director

‘Once again, I feel I have something to say’, Interview, Page 1 http://www.indianexpress.com/news/-Once-again--I-feel-I-have-something-to-say-/471304 Indian Express, Jun 07, 2009.

Faith , Travel

“Nothing makes a man feel older than a young woman.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 69, “Wind or Women’s Fancy” (p. 512)

Feeling

“.. I also got to meet w:George Maciunas, the father of Fluxus. I wanted to know what this Fluxus was, so I asked him, 'If I put salt in a tea bag and then into hot water, then the salt will dissolve, and when you pull the bag up, there is nothing in it. Is that Fluxus?' 'Let’s make that one right away,' Maciunas replied. And it became a Fluxus object. I told him that I was a painter and that I would keep painting. 'Well,' he said, 'that doesn’t matter, as long as you do it the right way.”

Per Kirkeby (1938–2018) Danish artist

Getting to know him, I understood that the right way was with a certain sense of justice.
1995 and later, interview in Kirkeby’s home studio, Copenhagen (2012)

Justice , Way , Sense , Water

“A bully is nothing more than a bunch of bull with a Y attached to its rear.”

Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer

Excerpt from the book The Goodbye Family Unveiled (2017) by Lorin Morgan-Richards.

“Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence. I am not remotely interested in just being good.”

Vince Lombardi (1913–1970) American football player, coach, and executive

First team meeting as Packers coach (1959), reported in Chuck Carlson, Game of My Life: 25 Stories of Packers Football (2004), p. 149; Richard Scott, Jay Barker, Legends of Alabama Football (2004), p. 78.

Perfection

“If you focus your mind on the freedom and community that you can build by staying firm, you will find the strength to do it. "Stand for something, or you will fall for nothing."
And if cynics ridicule freedom, ridicule community… if "hard nosed realists" say that profit is the only ideal… just ignore them, and use copyleft all the same.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1990s, Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism (1998)

Communication , Freedom

“The Treasury plan is a disgrace: a bailout of reckless bankers, lenders and investors that provides little direct debt relief to borrowers and financially stressed households and that will come at a very high cost to the US taxpayer. And the plan does nothing to resolve the severe stress in money markets and interbank markets that are now close to a systemic meltdown.”

Nouriel Roubini (1958) American economist

"RGE Conference Call on the Economic and Financial Outlook... and why the Treasury TARP bailout is flawed," http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/253762/rge_conference_call_on_the_economic_and_financial_outlookand_why_the_treasury_tarp_bailout_is_flawed RGE Monitor (2008-09-26).

Money

“What mathematics, therefore are expected to do for the advanced student at the university, Arithmetic, if taught demonstratively, is capable of doing for the children even of the humblest school. It furnishes training in reasoning, and particularly in deductive reasoning. It is a discipline in closeness and continuity of thought. It reveals the nature of fallacies, and refuses to avail itself of unverified assumptions. It is the one department of school-study in which the sceptical and inquisitive spirit has the most legitimate scope; in which authority goes for nothing. In other departments of instruction you have a right to ask for the scholar’s confidence, and to expect many things to be received on your testimony with the understanding that they will be explained and verified afterwards. But here you are justified in saying to your pupil “Believe nothing which you cannot understand. Take nothing for granted.” In short, the proper office of arithmetic is to serve as elementary 268 training in logic. All through your work as teachers you will bear in mind the fundamental difference between knowing and thinking; and will feel how much more important relatively to the health of the intellectual life the habit of thinking is than the power of knowing, or even facility of achieving visible results. But here this principle has special significance. It is by Arithmetic more than by any other subject in the school course that the art of thinking—consecutively, closely, logically—can be effectually taught.”

Joshua Girling Fitch (1824–1903) British educationalist

Source: Lectures on Teaching, (1906), pp. 292-293.

Life , Children , Health , School

“I met Sophie Taeuber in Zurich in 1915. Even then she already knew how to give direct and palpable shape to her inner reality. In those days this kind of art was called 'abstract art'. Now it is known as 'concrete art,' for nothing is more concrete than the psychic reality it expresses. Like music this art is tangible inner reality she was already dividing the surface of a watercolor into squares and rectangles which she juxtaposed horizontally and perpendicularly. She constructed her painting like a work of masonry. The colors are luminous, going from rawest yellow to deep red or…. blue.”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

Arp's quote on his wife, in 'Sophie Taeuber-Arp', Hans Arp; in Arp on Arp: Poems, Essays, Memories, ed. Marcel Jean, transl. Joachim Neugroschel; Viking Press, New York 1972, p. 222
1910-20s

Art , Music , Color , Reality

“However well-meaning and strong the individual man may be (if he could only use his strength), he still has not the passion to be able to tear himself from the coils and seductive uncertainty of reflection. Nor do his surroundings supply the events or produce the general enthusiasm necessary in order to free him. Instead of coming to his help, his milieu forms around him a negative intellectual opposition, which juggles for a moment with a deceptive prospect, only to deceive him in the end by pointing to a brilliant way out of the difficulty-by showing him that the shrewdest thing of all is to do nothing.”

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

The Present Age and of the Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle, translated by Alexander Dru (1962)
1840s, Two Ages: A Literary Review (1846)

Way , Tear , Strong , Passion

“Listen, then. I say justice is nothing other than what is advantageous for the stronger.”

Thrasymachus (-459–-399 BC) Ancient Greek sophist

Plato, Republic, 338c

Justice

“People vote because they want a job and want the economy expand. Whether it’s energy infrastructure or whether it’s the port or whether it’s ‘I’m willing to work with this president.’ I’m proud. I’m willing to stand up for this president and I’m willing to say ‘I will work with this administration on any single issue that helps Virginia.’ That’s where Ed Gillespie is. That’s where I am. That’s where John Adams is. And guess what? People go: ‘Yeah, I want that for my state. I don’t want that position where the other side is which is nothing.’ So I think that has resonated, and I think it’s working in Virginia and that’s why President Trump got elected—it’s because people are sick and tired of this politics of no.”

Jill Vogel (1970) American politician

GOP Lieutenant Governor Nominee Jill Vogel: Election ‘Beyond Critical,’ Americans ‘Playing for All the Marbles In Virginia’ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/10/19/exclusive-gop-lieutenant-governor-nominee-jill-vogel-election-beyond-critical-americans-playing-for-all-the-marbles-in-virginia/ (October 19, 2017)

People , Thinking , Help

“When you're dealing with someone who only has a pair of underpants on, if you take his underpants off, he has nothing left - he's naked. You're better off trying to find him a pair of trousers to complement him rather than change him.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

Detailing his philosophy, (2007) http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/funny_old_game/6366009.stm
Arsenal (1996–present)

Change

“To me poor people are like bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a flower-pot, you get a replica of the tallest tree, only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted, only the soil-base that is too inadequate. Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong in their seeds. Simply, society never gave them the base to grow on. All it needs to get the poor people out of poverty for us to create an enabling environment for them. Once the poor can unleash their energy and creativity, poverty will disappear very quickly.”

Muhammad Yunus (1940) Bangladeshi banker, economist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

Creating a World without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism (2007)

People , Flowers , Tree

“You are what is keeping and making the black race look bad. Wake up fool. Do not glorify this half a man, he has worked for nothing. He chose to keep himself where he is, not the white people. It is time to take responsibility for your own actions, and not act like a stinking fool. Kids and young black men and women look at this site, and believe that they are abused. That is a bold-faced lie. It is out of the mouths of cheap thugs like you that are hurting our young and taking away the chances they have to make themselves a productive part of society. Brothers and sisters, the only slavery in America now is the one you put yourself into. Rise up like Doctor King as taught us, and be a real human being. We are all in this togehter, white and black. Peace to all, and I hope this stupid fake hate stops real soon. We are all brothers and sisters. Do not be fooled by the tyranny of evil men like this. Lift yourself up, educate yourselves, and work hard for a good life. No one owes you anything. Stand proud as a person of color, and do something meaningful with your life. I did and I am the best at what I do! Peace out, R. Sherman.”

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

Posted on a website under the alias "RSherman25", quoted in "Richard Sherman Blasts 'Black Lives Matter' Activist" https://web.archive.org/web/20150916235759/http://newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/dylan-gwinn/2015/09/14/richard-sherman-blasts-black-lives-matter-activist (14 September 2015), by Dylan Gwinn, NewsBusters (2015), Reston, Virginia: Media Research Center. Sherman has said that although he agreed with some of the sentiments expressed, he did not write or say this http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/video-richard-sherman-speaks-passionately-on-black-lives-matter/.
Misattributed

Life , Women , Men , Hate

“I am one of the servants of Allah. We do our duty of fighting for the sake of the religion of Allah. It is also our duty to send a call to all the people of the world to enjoy this great light and to embrace Islam and experience the happiness in Islam. Our primary mission is nothing but the furthering of this religion. … Let not the West be taken in by those who say that Muslims choose nothing but slaughtering. Their brothers in East Europe, in Turkey and in Albania have been guided by Allah to submit to Islam and to experience the bliss of Islam. Unlike those, the European and the American people and some of the Arabs are under the influence of Jewish media.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

1990s, ABC interview (1998)

People , World , Religion , Light

“In the land of small dogs we are all card-sharpers, we do everything in fun: in fun we feed all the small dogs with the crumbs of our feeling; in fun we make out we love every little dog we meet, and no one therefore can love properly in the land of small dogs; there is nothing genuine. Not even falsehood is genuine.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 257

Love , Dogs , Feeling

“I frankly can't wait, because the idea of Bill Clinton back in the White House with nothing to do is something I just can't imagine, I can't imagine the American people can imagine….”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

In response to the question, "How would you run against Hillary and Bill Clinton in November?", MSNBC, Republican Presidential Candidate Debate, FL, 2007-01-25
2007 campaign for Republican nomination for United States President

People , Imagination , Idea , Waiting

“My career was a hollow success, a tissue of fantasies on film. Cheryl loved my mother, and they were both comfortably endowed in my will. I had never before felt or believed I could be in such a dark hole mentally, physically, and worst of all spiritually. All the good in my life—my mother, my child, my work, my friends—was blotted out by the dead feeling that nothing really mattered. I hadnt heard that suicide was a cry for help. To me it meant putting a big stop to the pain and anguish. There was none of that Ill show them. Boy, they'll miss me when Im gone nonsense. I wasnt trying to hurt anyone. I was aware that everyone would go on and survive, but I knew I definitely could not. I wanted out.”

Lana Turner (1921–1995) American actress

On her depression and suicide attempt, p. 158.
Autobiography

Love , Life , Pain , Feeling

“[T]he assumption describes our actions, not our thoughts. If you had to understand something intellectually in order to do it, none of us would be able to walk.
Economics is based on the assumption that people have reasonably simple objectives and choose means to achieve them. Both assumptions are false-but useful.
Suppose someone is rational only half the time. Since there is generally one right way of doing things and many wrong ways, the rational behavior can be predicted but the irrational cannot. If we assume he is rational, we predict his behavior correctly about half of the tie - far from perfect, but a lot better then nothing. If I could do well at the racetrack I would be a very rich man.
[R]ationality is an assumption I make about other people. I know myself.
[R]ationality is an assumption I make about other people. I know myself well enough to allow for the consequences of my own irrationality. But for the vast mass of my fellow humans, about whom I know very little, rationality is the best predictive assumption available.”

David D. Friedman (1945) American economist, physicist, legal scholar, and libertarian theorist

As cited in Ronald J. Baker (2010) Implementing Value Pricing: A Revolutionary Business Model for Professional Firms. p. 122
Source: Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, 1996, pp.3-5

People , Way , Behavior , Understanding

“Tis but a surface-view of human nature which gives the impression that the argument to immortality from our a priori powers leads to nothing more than bare continuance. What it really leads to, is the continuance of a being whose most intimate nature is found, not in the capacity of sensory life, but in the power of setting and appreciating values, through its still higher power of determining its ideals. For such a nature to continue, is to continue in the gradual development of all that makes for worth.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Human Immortality: its Positive Argument, p.310

Life , Nature

“War has been with us ever since the dawn of civilization. Nothing has been more constant in history than war.”

Robert Aumann (1930) Israeli-American mathematician

Source: War and peace (2005), p. 1

War , History

“Debate is an art form. It is about the winning of arguments. It is not about the discovery of truth. There are certain rules and procedures to debate that really have nothing to do with establishing fact—which creationists have mastered. Some of those rules are: never say anything positive about your own position because it can be attacked, but chip away at what appear to be the weaknesses in your opponent's position. They are good at that. I don't think I could beat the creationists at debate. I can tie them. But in courtrooms they are terrible, because in courtrooms you cannot give speeches. In a courtroom you have to answer direct questions about the positive status of your belief. We destroyed them in Arkansas. On the second day of the two-week trial we had our victory party!”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

After the McLean v. Arkansas creationism trial, as quoted in Review of the National Center for Science Education Vol. 24, No. 6 (November–December 2004) http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol24/620_then_a_miracle_occurs_12_30_1899.asp

Truth , Art , Question , Thinking

“Since taking this job things have happened. I've been spending my free time studying the Word. Each night the Lord seemed to get hold of me a little more. Night before last I was reading in Nehemiah. I finished the book, and read it through again. Here was a man who left everything as far as position was concerned to go do a job nobody else could handle. And because he went the whole remnant back in Jerusalem got right with the Lord. Obstacles and hindrances fell away and a great work was done. Jim, I couldn't get away from it. The Lord was dealing with me. On the way home yesterday morning I took a long walk and came to a decision which I know is of the Lord. In all honesty before the Lord I say that no one or nothing beyond Himself and the Word has any bearing upon what I've decided to do. I have one desire now - to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy into it. Maybe He'll send me someplace where the name of Jesus Christ is unknown. Jim, I'm taking the Lord at His word, and I'm trusting Him to prove His Word. It's kind of like putting all your eggs in one basket, but we've already put our trust in Him for salvation, so why not do it as far as our life is concerned? If there's nothing to this business of eternal life we might as well lose everything in one crack and throw our present life away with out life hereafter. But if there is something to it, then everything else the Lord says must hold true likewise. Pray for me, Jim.”

Ed McCully (1927–1956) American Christian missionary

Life , Books , Way , Home

“Whereas certain people start with a recollection or an experience and paint that experience, to some of us the act of doing is the experience; so that we are not quite clear why we are engaged on a particular work. And because we are more interested in plastic matters than we are in matters of words, once can begin a painting and carry it through and stop it and do nothing about the title at all. All pictures are full of association.”

William Baziotes (1912–1963) American painter

Source: 1950s, Artists' Session at Studio 35, (1950), p. 217

People , Painting

“If you find it hard to believe that there was an Intelligent Designer, give this some thought. Man, with all his genius, can’t make a rock, a leaf, a flower, a living singing bird, a croaking frog, or even a grain of dead sand from nothing. We can recreate, but we can’t create anything material from nothing, living or dead. Not a thing. Did you realize that if we could simply make one blade of grass without using existing materials, we could solve the world’s hunger problem? If we could make a blade of grass, we could then create a lot more grass, feed the green material through a machine that does what the common cow does, and have pure white full cream milk, then smooth cream, delicious yogurt, tasty cheese, and smooth butter. But we can’t make even one blade of grass from nothing, let alone giving it the ability to reproduce after its own kind, as regular grass does. We have no idea where to begin when it comes to creating. If that’s true, how intellectually dishonest is it to say that this entire incredible creation in which we live, came into existence with no Intelligent Designer?”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

The Origin of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition (2009)

Hunger , World , Intelligence , Flowers

“Do not they bring it to pass by knowing that they know nothing at all?”

Terence Andria

The Prologue, line 17.
Andria (The Lady of Andros)

“That passivity was the essence of the problem. The human being was intended to be passive only in a condition of fatigue, and not always then. Too much passivity of body produced surplus fat, short-windedness, indigestion: passivity of mind produced the same symptoms on the mental level. a feeling of spiritual dyspepsia. Since the average human being has no purposes that are not connected with the activities of keeping alive, the black room was bound to produce passivity, increasing dullness, a state in which the mind is at once awake and static, motionless, stagnant. This sense of dullness was nothing less than the collapse of the sense of reality and of values, the retreat into one's inner world.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: The Black Room (1975), p. 72

World , Feeling , Problem , Reality

“This morning, when I got my mail — there's concrete all over the ground — cement, you know — and these little clovers — the little green clovers, like from St. Patrick's Day — the plant — were growing up out of the cement — no dirt and no nothing and no rain — and there they were, growing up out of the cement, and I was thinking — "that's like me."”

Ysabella Brave (1979) American singer

"My Nightgown is Blue and I am too!" (20 March 2009)

Thinking

“.. But it doesn't frighten me, because I studied in France, thank God, and I know of no artist in history who was not 'literary' when it came down to it. Not a single one. And even if they don't appear to be, I know of none and you at least don't recall them, because there is nothing to recall... Sometime or other I'd like to see a << pure >> artist, but I didn't even find one in France. Obviously the trouble is that one approaches painting from the other side, so that the word << sujet >> conceals the point of the thing. Yet even the most beautiful and << emptiest >> sujet (an apple, a grape or any << non-figurative painting >>) doesn't help if there are no foundations, either innate or acquired through hard work... Why don't we say clearly: << That is freedom, and this is commitment to the subject >> and << to each tree its berries >>, but let it be a tree and not a donkey..”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

Quote in Chagall's letter to A. N. Benois, 1918; as quoted in Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1991, p. 150
1910's

God , Beauty , History , Tree

“Women from earliest times have been used as conveniences of communication with unseen, inaccessible powers, but always in the sense that such exposing of self to dangerous mysteries, such destruction of the understanding as was required to become the slave of unseen powers, did not matter because the communicant was only a woman, in herself an undetermined cipher – a nothing.”

Laura Riding Jackson (1901–1991) poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer

"The Idea of God" from Essays from Epilogue (Manchester: Carcanet, 2001)

Women , Communication , Understanding , Sense

“What I am really here to talk about is the central thing, the core, the nucleus—life itself. I’m not here to talk about what we should do in life. There are many options as far that is concerned and, of course, you can pick one, whatever suits you. But I’m talking about life itself without which nothing is wrong and nothing is right. Unbiased life. Maybe one day everything is going the right way for you and you’re incredibly happy. And you’re still breathing and you’re still alive. Then one day you’re really sad, and everything is terrible. And you’re still breathing; you’re still alive. That thing is never affected by what the outer circumstances are.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia April 3, 1984
1980s

Life , Sadness , Way , Happiness

“It was January and snowing like crazy. It was tough; the food was terrible. Eighteen months of my life for nothing? I thought my own dreams were more important.”

Tarkan (1972) Turkish singer

Pop Music's Young Turk, Washington Post, November 18, 2001, https://archive.is/v9Jw, 2012-12-09 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A41014-2001Nov16&notFound=true,
About his military service

Life , Food , Dreams

“It is no surprise that the is thrilled about Khizr Khan’s “brutal repudiation of Donald Trump,” even though Khan, not quite accurately, claims that Trump wants to “ban us from this country.” Trump has said nothing about banning Muslim citizens of the U. S. from the country, only about a temporary moratorium on immigration from terror states. In any case, all the effusive praise being showered on Khizr Khan today overlooks one central point: he is one man. His family is one family. There are no doubt many others like his, but this fact does not mean that there is no jihad, or that all Muslims in the U. S. are loyal citizens.”

Robert Spencer (1962) American author and blogger

About Khizr M. Khan's speech during the (July 29, 2016)

Family , Country

“What’s coming is reality. Politics has nothing to do with reality!”

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

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 14 (p. 269)

Reality

“There will be no lies. We will honor the American people with the truth, and nothing else.”

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

2010s, 2016, July, (21 July 2016)

People , Truth

“I had gone thoroughly through some of the all-fiction magazines and I made up my mind that if people were paid for writing such rot as I read I could write stories just as rotten. Although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines.
I knew nothing about the technique of story writing, and now, after eighteen years of writing, I still know nothing about the technique, although with the publication of my new novel, Tarzan and the Lost Empire, there are 31 books on my list. I had never met an editor, or an author or a publisher. l had no idea of how to submit a story or what I could expect in payment. Had I known anything about it at all I would never have thought of submitting half a novel; but that is what I did.
Thomas Newell Metcalf, who was then editor of The All-Story magazine, published by Munsey, wrote me that he liked the first half of a story I had sent him, and if the second half was as good he thought he might use it. Had he not given me this encouragement, I would never have finished the story, and my writing career would have been at an end, since l was not writing because of any urge to write, nor for any particular love of writing. l was writing because I had a wife and two babies, a combination which does not work well without money.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) American writer

How I Wrote the Tarzan Books (1929)

Love , Money , People , Books

“How do you get away with it? Above all, how do you persuade people to risk their lives in order to kill total strangers whom they know almost literally nothing about? Why, the answer’s simple. You lie to them!”

John Brunner book The Stone That Never Came Down

Source: The Stone That Never Came Down (1973), Chapter 17 (p. 135)

People , Lie

“The graves all are silent. The caskets are vacant. Stalin has no more wisdom for us. Nietzsche is preserved in books, having forgotten to lift his casket lid and tell us he was right. Muhammad gives us the slip. So does Buddha. It is Christ alone who defeats the grave. Nothing is left in the tomb but echoes and cobwebs. And so we do well to listen to Him with the ears of dying men.”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

Wisdom , Men , Books , Christ

“In fact, nothing is said that has not been said before.”
Nullumst iam dictum quod non dictum sit prius.

Terence Eunuchus

Nullum est iam dictum quod non dictum sit prius.
Prologue, Line 41.
Variant translation: Nothing has yet been said that’s not been said before.
Eunuchus

“[The Spanish news] really keeps me awake at night and in the day I can think of nothing else. I did not think it possible that anything could have made me regret being out of office, but I now wish I was in a situation, in which it might be possible to assist this glorious cause.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Letter to Lady Holland (2 July 1808), quoted in E. A. Smith, Lord Grey. 1764-1845 (Alan Sutton, 1996), p. 169.
1800s

Thinking , Night

“We have to be truthful and transparent. If by being transparent we will be punished, then there's nothing we can do about it. We will still continue to be transparent.”

Lim Guan Eng (1960) Finance Minister of Malaysia

Lim Guan Eng (2018) cited in " Economy remains strong, fundamentals solid, says Guan Eng https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2018/05/25/economy-remains-strong-fundamentals-solid-says-guan-eng/" on The Star Online, 25 May 2018

Truth

“I used to think I could understand everything and express everything. Or almost everything. I remember when I was writing my book about the war in Afghanistan, Zinky Boys, I went to Afghanistan and they showed me some of the foreign weapons that had been captured from the Afghan fighters. I was amazed at how perfect their forms were, how perfectly a human thought had been expressed. There was an officer standing next to me and he said, "If someone were to step on this Italian mine that you say is so pretty it looks like a Christmas decoration, there would be nothing left of them but a bucket of meat. You'd have to scrape them off the ground with a spoon." When I sat down to write this, it was the first time I thought, "Is this something I should say?" I had been raised on great Russian literature, I thought you could go very very far, and so I wrote about that meat. But the Zone—it's a separate world, a world within the rest of the world—and it's more powerful than anything literature has to say.”

Svetlana Alexievich book Voices from Chernobyl

Source: Voices from Chernobyl (2005), pp. 239–240

War , Books , World , Boy

“The Cubists, to be objective, restrict themselves to considering things by turning around them, to produce their geometric writing. So they remain at a stage of intelligence which sees everything and feels nothing, which brings everything to a standstill in order to describe everything. We Futurists are trying, on the contrary, with the power of intuition, to place ourselves at the very center of things, in such a way that our ego forms with their own uniqueness a single complex. We thus give plastic planes a plastic expansion in space, obtaining this feeling of something in perpetual motion which is peculiar to everything living.”

Carlo Carrà (1881–1966) Italian painter

1910's
Source: Piani plastici come espanzione sferica nello spazio Carrà, March 1913, as quoted in Futurism, Didier Ottinger (ed.), 2008, p. 146

Way , Feeling , Intelligence

“Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Letter (10 February 1804).

Death , Country

“Nothing is more frightful than to see ignorance in action.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tätige Unwissenheit.
Maxim 542, trans. Stopp
Variant translation by Saunders: Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action. (231)
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“The greater the interest involved in a truth the more careful, self-distrustful, and patient should be the inquiry.
I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a better one to put in its place, because, such as it is, it is better than nothing.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

Letter to William Lloyd Garrison (1853).

Truth , Faith

“The small triumph of "The Graduate" was to have domesticated alienation and the difficulty of communication, by making what Benjamin is alienated from a middle-class comic strip and making it absurdly evident that he has nothing to communicate — which is just what makes him an acceptable hero for the large movie audience. If he said anything or had any ideas, the audience would probably hate him.”

Pauline Kael book Going Steady

Going Steady (1969), Trash, Art and the Movies (February 1969)

Hate , Communication , Idea

“The wounded want power, nothing else; they think it will keep them from being hurt again.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Borders of Infinity (1989)

Thinking , Hurt

“Really," said the poet, without enthusiasm.
"Mm—you say 'Really,' young man?" said the secretary. "That is undeniably a rather peculiar reply. Might I ask what you mean by that word?"
"I mean that I'm such an insignificant poet that it isn't worthwhile getting me to compose a poem," said Ólafur Kárason modestly.
The secretary gave the poet a stern and searching look and finally said, "I no longer understand young people nowadays. It's as if nothing serious or important makes any impression on young people any longer. The modern craze seems to be to squander money needlessly if possible. But luckily it isn't possible. Even you, young man, who are said to have a poetic bent, yes, and some say you even possess a modicum of intelligence, you just say 'Really' when you're invited to take part in a ceremony which is destined to revolutionize the religious, scientific, and moral life of the nation.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

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Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

Life , Money , People , Search

“… there is nothing that the most prominent men in the Liberal party more earnestly desire than that labour representation, direct labour representation, shall be as large as possible… It is sometimes said to me, "Oh! but you are against State intervention in matters of great social reform". At this time of the day it would be absurd for any man who has mastered all the Mining Regulations Acts, the Factories Acts, the great mass of regulation which affects trade; it would be absurd for any man to stand on a platform and say he was entirely against State intervention. I, for my part, have never taken that position… My own belief is that in the matters of hours and of wages for adult male labour the interference would be a bad and mischievous thing… that in such matters, for example, as housing of the poor and so forth, the proper machinery through which to carry out these operations is municipal and not Parliamentary.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Speech at Huddersfield (21 May 1892), quoted in 'Mr. Morley At Huddersfield', The Times (23 May 1892), p. 7.

Men , Time , Parting , Housing

“Science has only two things to contribute to religion: an analysis of the evolutionary, cultural, and psychological basis for believing things that aren’t true, and a scientific disproof of some of faith’s claims (e. g., Adam and Eve, the Great Flood). Religion has nothing to contribute to science, and science is best off staying as far away from faith as possible. The “constructive dialogue” between science and faith is, in reality, a destructive monlogue, with science making all the good points, tearing down religion in the process.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" Tania Lombrozo strokes the faithful at NPR http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/tania-lombrozo-strokes-the-faithful-at-npr/" September 23, 2013

Faith , Religion , Reality , Tear