Quotes about nothing
page 65

“The two cops dragging the little guy out stopped dead still. The other one washing the bloodstains from the seat quit swishing the brush over the wicker and held his breath. Nobody ever spoke that way to Dilwick. Nobody from the biggest politician in the state to the hardest apple that ever stepped out of a pen. Nobody ever did because Dilwick would cut them up into fine pieces with his bare hands and enjoy it. That was Dilwick, the dirtiest, roughest cop who ever walked a beat or swung a nightstick over a skull. Crude, he was. Crude, hard and dirty and afraid of nothing. He'd sooner draw blood from a face than eat and everybody knew it. That's why nobody ever spoke to him that way. That is, nobody except me.
Because I'm the same way myself.”

Mickey Spillane book The Twisted Thing

The Twisted Thing (1966)

Way, Guy, Drawing, Dead

“Words are sublime, and in books we may commune with the dead. Beyond this there is nothing true, no voices we can hear.”

Sofia Samatar book A Stranger in Olondria

Source: A Stranger in Olondria (2013), Chapter 8, “The Tower of Myrrh” (p. 92)

Books, Communication, Dead

“All I can tell you with certainty is that I, for one, have no self, and that I am unwilling or unable to perpetrate upon myself the joke of a self…. What I have instead is a variety of impersonations I can do, and not only of myself — a troupe of players that I have internalised, a permanent company of actors that I can call upon when a self is required…. I am a theater and nothing more than a theater.”

Philip Roth book The Counterlife

Source: The Counterlife (1986), Ch. 5

“The new community which the capitalists are now constructing will be a very complete and absolute community; and one which will tolerate nothing really independent of itself.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Source: Utopia of Usurers (1917), pp. 33-34

Communication

“For four or five centuries, Islam was the most brilliant civilization in the Old World. (…) At its higher level the golden age of Muslim civilization was both an immense scientific success and a exceptional revival of ancient philosophy. These was not its only triumphs; literature was another: but they eclipse the rest. First, science: it was there that the Saracens (…) made the most original contributions. These, in brief, were nothing less than trigonometry and algebra (with its significantly Arab name). (…) Equally distinguished were Islam's mathematical geographers, its astronomical observatories and instruments (…). The Muslims also deserve high marks for optics, for chemistry (…) and for pharmacy. More than half the remedies and healing aids used by the West came from Islam (…). Muslim medical skill was incontestable. (…) In the field of philosophy, what took place was rediscovery - a return, essentially of the peripatetic philosophy. The scope of this rediscovery, however, was not limited to copying and handling on, valuable as that undoubtely was. It also involved continuing, elucidating and creating.”

Fernand Braudel (1902–1985) French historian and a leader of the Annales School

A History of Civilizations , Penguin, 1995, p. 73-81

Age, World, Literature, Mathematics

“The thing about most of the media is that they want to reduce everybody to the lowest common denominator. They don't want people to have any heroes. I've got nothing against criticism of political figures, but that's different from a personal attack. It's easier to do sensationalism and character assassination than focus on the real issues. And they're obsessed, it seems, with portraying the ugliest side of humanity—the dishonesty, hypocrisy, ego battles, and fights.
How dare Fox, CNN, and MSNBC call themselves news stations? They're entertainment stations.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

Source: Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (2008), Ch. 3 (p. 51)

People, Fight, Personality

“"We used to say, 'They have everything, but it.' We had nothing, but it".”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

CNN Larry King Weekend (2002)

“May not this religious reticence, in these devout good souls, be perhaps a merit, and sign of health in them? Jocelin, Eadmer, and such religious men, have as yet nothing of 'Methodism;' no Doubt or even root of Doubt. Religion is not a diseased self-introspection, an agonising inquiry: their duties are clear to them, the way of supreme good plain, indisputable, and they are traveling on it. Religion lies over them like an all-embracing heavenly canopy, like an atmosphere and life- element, which is not spoken of, which in all things is presupposed without speech. Is not serene or complete Religion the highest aspect of human nature.”

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

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Life, Men, Health, Disease

“Mr. Khan, paid the ultimate sacrifice in his family, didn't he. And what has he heard from Donald Trump? Nothing but insults, degrading comments about Muslims, a total misunderstanding of what made our country great, religious freedom, religious liberty. It's enshrined in our Constitution, as Mr. Khan knows, because he's actually read it.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

At a church in Cleveland. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/07/31/khizr-khan-calls-trump-a-black-soul-says-mcconnell-ryan-have-moral-obligation-to-repudiate-him/ The Washington Post (July 31, 2016) <br class="br">Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016)

Family, Freedom, Reading, Country

““I shall know soon.” I hesitated. “I shall know if all these adventurings, all these ordeals, have been meaningless or not. Man struggles in the belief that he can, by dint of perseverance, affect his own destiny. And all those efforts, I think, lead to nothing but ruin.”

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 15 (p. 149)

Thinking, Effort, Perseverance

“A candle burned on the table, a candle burned … he whispered to himself — the beginning of something confused, formless; he hoped that it would take shape of itself. But nothing more came to him.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Source: Doctor Zhivago (1957), Ch. 3 section 10

Hope

“Nothing is more alien to the present age than idleness. If we think of resting from our labours, it is only in order to return to them. In thinking so highly of work we are aberrant. Few other cultures have ever done so. For nearly all of history and all prehistory, work was an indignity.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

As It Is: Sisyphus's Progress (p. 195)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Age, History, Thinking

“Would we have played with our lives for nothing but worldly gain?
If our people had run after earth's goods and gold,
Need they have smashed idols, and not idols sold?…
Fake gods that men had made, who did break and shatter?
Who routed infidel armies and destroyed them with bloody slaughter?
Who put out and made cold the sacred flame in Iran?”

Muhammad Iqbál (1877–1938) Urdu poet and leader of the Pakistan Movement

Shikwa. https://archive.org/details/ShikwaJawabIShikwaIqbalsDialogueWithAllahTrKhushwantSinghIqbal <br class="br">Shikwa & Jawab Shikwa : The complaint and the answer : the human grievance and the divine response

Men, God, People

“A consoling thought: what matters is not what we do, but the spirit in which we do it. Others suffer too; so much so that there is nothing in the world but suffering; the problem is simply to keep a clear conscience.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

World, Problem, Suffering

“It is often said that a monkey could run an index fund. Nothing could be further fro the truth. Precisely tracking an index requires a very high degree of market savvy, discipline and nerve.”

William J. Bernstein (1948) economist

Source: The Four Pillars of Investing (2002), Chapter 13, Defining Your Mix, p. 246.

Truth

“Many lamented but more rejoiced, and specially such as either had been religious men, or favoured religious persons; for they banqueted and triumphed together that night, many wishing that that day had been seven year before; and some fearing lest he should escape, although he were imprisoned, could not be merry. Others who knew nothing but truth by him both lamented him and heartily prayed for him. But this is true that of certain of the clergy he was detestably hated, & specially of such as had borne swynge, and by his means was put from it; for in dead he was a man that in all his doings seemed not to favour any kind of Popery, nor could not abide the snoffyng pride of some prelates, which undoubtedly, whatsoever else was the cause of his death, did shorten his life and procured the end that he was brought unto.”

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (1485–1540) English statesman and chief minister to King Henry VIII of England

Edward Hall on Cromwell's downfall. (Sir Henry Ellis (ed.), Hall's Chronicle (London, 1809), p. 838.)
About

Life, Death, Men, Hate

“So nothing is as sweet as a man's own country,
his own parents, even though he's settled down
in some luxurious house, off in a foreign land
and far from those who bore him.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

IX. 34–36 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Parent, Housing, Country

“"Most so-called liberated people that I know are full of it," remarked a caustic, albeit articulate, businessman attending a seminar I gave on emerging male/female relationships. "The feminist leadership is a good example. They have the worst qualities of both men and women. They have all the answers and nothing you can say ever changes their mind. Then, from what I read, one turns on and attacks the other—supposedly for ideological reasons, but it's just a variation on the old-fashioned male ritual of ego-tripping—'I'm for real, you're not—I'm the greatest, you're nothing.'"It's a real cast of characters, these feminist leaders," he continued. "There's the glamor queen one who's trying to be a movie star without copping to what she's doing. It's obvious, though. She's always being seen with celebrities and she's always dating the richest, most successful guys. Then there's the other one who's like a Jewish mother—complaining and telling everybody how to change, and how to live. I'm surprised she doesn't try and tell us what to eat."I looked through their magazine recently. It's full of the same kind of ads as the other women's magazines that Ms. supposedly abhors. You know, jewelry, deodorants, perfumes—and the articles are mainly old-fashioned victim variety stuff, an updated variation on the old "poor downtrodden women" theme."The 'liberated' guys they hold up as shining examples of what men should behave like are just as phony as the feminist women pretending to be so pure. They're workaholics, and they're the worst kind of arrogant—because God is on their side and unless you imitate them, you're a misguided pig. It feels like being at a church social when you watch them—at least as hypocritical, if not more so—because at least church types don't pretend to be open to discussing their beliefs. They're out front in thinking that they have all the answers."When what's-her-name ran for vice-president and lost, what did she do—she blamed the male establishment. God save us from female leadership! They can't stop blaming—even at that level. I thought of reminding her that this country has at least ten million more women than men and the odds were totally on her side and it was women who rejected her, and saw through her act; but I know better than to argue against that stuff with facts."”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

Earth Mothers in Disguise, p. 149
The Inner Male (1987)

Women, Men, God, People

“There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead armadillos.”

Jim Hightower (1943) Texas author and liberal political activist

There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos (1998)

Dead

“I grieve for you, how I mourn for you, who are so very dear to me, but again I can rejoice within my heart, not for nothing "have I labored," neither has my exile been "in vain."”

Saint Patrick (385–461) 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland

Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus (c.450?)

Heart

“It went to pieces all at once—
All at once and nothing first,
Just as bubbles do when they burst.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

The Deacon's Masterpiece; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Well, they’re Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of walking right in for coffee. But they wouldn’t dream of interrupting you at golf.”

Harper Lee (1926–2016) American author

On why she has done her best creative thinking while playing golf, as quoted in Time (12 May 1980)

People, Dreams, Home, Coffee

“As it had been explained to David long ago, genetic diversity was very, very important. The more diverse the human gene pool was, the better were humanity’s chances of adapting to any new and unexpected conditions it might encounter, now that it was beginning to push outward into Space, to say nothing of surviving any unexpected natural disasters such as polar shifts or meteor strikes on Earth.
Unfortunately, humanity had been both unlucky and foolish. Out of the dozens of races that had once lived in the world, only a handful had survived into modern times. Some ancient races had been rendered extinct by war. Some had been simply crowded out, retreating into remote regions and forced to breed amongst themselves, which killed them off with lethal recessives.
That had been the bad luck. The foolishness had come when people began to form theories about the process of Evolution. They got it all wrong: most people interpreted the concept of “survival of the fittest” to mean they ought to narrow the gene pool, reducing it in size. So this was done, in genocidal wars and eugenics programs, and how surprised people were when lethal recessives began to occur more frequently! To say nothing of the populations who died in droves when diseases swept through them, because they were all so genetically similar there were none among them with natural immunities.”

Kage Baker book The Machine's Child

Source: The Machine's Child (2006), Chapter 29, “Still Another Morning in 500,000 BCE” (p. 330)

War, Bad luck, People, World

“I have tried very hard to find meaning in what I do, but I have found instead a vast and limitless nothingness. I tried to embrace the nothingness, but it slipped through my grasp, and now there is nothing where the nothingness was. This may sound meaningful, but it isn't.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

June 16
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“As when men to keep from being swept overboard in the storm clutch at each other's hands to resist being torn apart, so our bodies fused a link in the human chain that kept us from being swept into nothing.”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Flowers for Algernon (1966)

Men

“Goethe said, “The author whom a lexicon can keep up with is worth nothing”; Somerset Maugham says that the finest compliment he ever received was a letter in which one of his readers said: “I read your novel without having to look up a single word in the dictionary.””

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

These writers, plainly, lived in different worlds.
"The Obscurity of the Poet", p. 13
No Other Book: Selected Essays (1999)

World, Reading

“The first principle of cosmology must be 'There is nothing outside the universe'. This is not to exclude religion or mysticism… But if it is knowledge that we desire… we need to seek answers to questions about the things we can see… only things that exist in the universe.”

Lee Smolin book Three Roads to Quantum Gravity

Three Roads to Quantum Gravity (2000)

Religion, Question, Knowledge, Universe

“I once read that there's nothing worse for everyone concerned than a reign that's lasted too long. I've also heard that God is eternal.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Reflections

God, Reading

“Things which cost nothing are those which cost the most. Why? Because they cost us the effort of understanding that they are free.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Understanding, Effort

“I, of whom I know nothing, I know my eyes are open, because of the tears that pour from them unceasingly.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Tear

“This dance is the joy of existence. I am filled with you.
Skin, blood, bone, brain, and soul.
There's no room for lack of trust, or trust.
Nothing in this existence but that existence.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

"We Three" Ch. 11 : Union
The Essential Rumi (1995)

Soul, Joy, Dance

“To me it was so natural that companies should seek their own survival. I had seen nothing else in my life. Companies struggle to keep going and to grow, for as long as possible.”

Arie de Geus (1930) Dutch businessman

Source: The Living Company, 1997, p. 182

Life, Nature

“The depression and suicidal fantasies of three years ago are nothing but a memory to me now.”

Joey Comeau book Overqualified

Overqualified

Suicide, Memory

“Ayatollah, would you be so kind as to tell us how you feel about being back in Iran?
Nothing. I don't feel anything.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Hichi. Hich ehsasi nadaram
Exchange between American reporter Peter Jennings and Khomeini (1 February 1979), during Khomeini's return flight to Iran; quoted in Elaine Sciolino (2001) Persian Mirrors. Khomeini's translator did not translate his response, but said only that he had no comment.

Feeling

“You have to watch your step with women these days, Pops. She could be involved with Yakuza or something. Even some of the girls in my class -- you should hear the stuff they talk about. Fifteen years old, and there's nothing they don't know. We're not in the age of Peace and Love anymore.”

Ryū Murakami book Audition

Source: Audition (1997), Chapter Seven, Shige

Love, Women, Age, Peace

“The zealous care with which J. M. W. Turner endeavoured to do his duty, is proved by a large existing series of drawings, exquisitely tinted, and often completely coloured, all by his own hand, of the most difficult perspective subjects—illustrating not only directions of line, but effects of light - with a care and completion which would put the work of any ordinary teacher to utter shame. In teaching generally — he would neither waste time nor spare it - he would look over a student's drawing at the Academy, point to a defective part, make a scratch on the paper at the side, say nothing. If the student saw what was wanted, and did it, Turner was delighted; but if the student could not follow. Turner left him.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Quote, c. 1850's; describing Turner's perspective lectures; as quoted in The life of J.M.W. Turner, Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, p. 108

Light, Teachers, Time, Parting

“Roger: See.. that's a tough question 'cause I went to a lot of really small shows for bands that nobody knew who they really were 'cause that's the kind of thing that I grew up on - was like going to clubs and stuff. The first like real, real concert that I went to was U2 at the Orange Bowl in Miami for the Joshua Tree Tour. I think it was in '87? Something like that. Yeah… I think that was it. We were way up in the nosebleeds and Bono was like this big! (Roger shows thumb and index finger really close) (all laugh) But, that's what I thought a concert was at that point - really huge. Everything else was more like a rehearsal or you know.. club shows. Like oh, that's nothing - 500 kids. It doesn't seem that weird. I've played in front of 500 kids at my piano recitals and I didn't think it was a big deal.”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

Way, Question, Thinking, Tree

“I wish I wasn't … There's nothing good that comes out of that. You get more visibility as a result of it.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

On being the world's richest man, in an online advertising conference in Redmond, Washington, as quoted in The Guardian (5 May 2006) http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1768129,00.html <br class="br">2000s

“If it were so, as conceited sagacity, proud of not being deceived, thinks, that we should believe nothing that we cannot see with our physical eyes, then we first and foremost ought to give up believing in love. … We can be deceived by believing what is untrue, but we certainly are also deceived by not believing what is true. … Which deception is more dangerous?”

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

Source: 1840s, Works of Love (1847), p. 5

Love, Thinking

“Once someone gave me a book of the Christians. I asked him to read it to me. It talked about nothing but sin. Sin is the only thing one hears at your Brahmo Samaj too… He who says day and night, ‘I am a sinner, I am a sinner’, verily becomes a sinner… Why should one only talk about sin and hell, and such things?”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

October 27, 1882, to Keshub Chunder Sen. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Volume 1, Madras, 1985, p. 138. Quoted from Goel, S. R. (2016). History of Hindu-Christian encounters Ch.13
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942)

Books, Hell, Reading, Night

“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.”

Jonathan Edwards book Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741)

God, Hate, Hell, Time

“Arabic writing at the beginning of Islam was, therefore, not of the best quality nor of the greatest accuracy and excellence. It was not (even) of medium quality, because the Arabs possessed the savage desert attitude and were not familiar with crafts. One may compare what happened to the orthography of the Qur’an on account of this situation. The men around Muhammad wrote the Qur’an in their own script which, was not of a firmly established, good quality. Most of the letters were in contradiction to the orthography required by persons versed in the craft of writing…. Consequently, (the Qur’anic orthography of the men around Muhammad was followed and became established, and the scholars acquainted with it have called attention to passages where (this is noticeable). No attention should be paid in this connection with those incompetent (scholars) that (the men around Muhammad) knew well the art of writing and that the alleged discrepancies between their writing and the principles of orthography are not discrepancies, as has been alleged, but have a reason. For instance, they explain the addition of the alif in la ‘adhbahannahU "I shall indeed slaughter him" as indication that the slaughtering did not take place ( lA ‘adhbahannahU ). The addition of the ya in bi-ayydin "with hands (power)," they explain as an indication that the divine power is perfect. There are similar things based on nothing but purely arbitrary assumptions. The only reason that caused them to (assume such things) is their belief that (their explanations) would free the men around Muhammad from the suspicion of deficiency, in the sense that they were not able to write well. They think that good writing is perfection. Thus, they do not admit the fact that the men around Muhammad were deficient in writing.”

Ibn Khaldun book Muqaddimah

Muqqadimah, ibn Khaldun, vol. 2, p. 382
Muqaddimah (1377)

Men, Art, Thinking, Sense

“Since 1914…I wait for the natural to return; for newspapers to report news with care for accuracy and grammar; for schools to teach and for pupils to study; for faces to be sane and intelligent, and even humorous; for American artists and poets and writers to be exuberant and optimistic…it is all gone with the music of Vienna and the gaiety of San Francisco. But I still see everything against that background, and really I see nothing funny anywhere. The Beatnik beard and the mini skirt and the topless waitress, they ARE funny, I know they are funny but they only make me tired, I don't laugh.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

letter to Roger MacBride (March 5, 1968).
reflecting her impressions of the world of 1968, at the age of 81.

School, Music, Intelligence, Nature

“Everything means nothing—that is the only truth.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Source: Short fiction, To Rescue Tanelorn... (1962), p. 472

Truth

“It could be that the total scenario for human beings is an insoluble mystery until we die, followed by nothing at all.”

Bryan Magee (1930–2019) British politician

Confessions of a Philosopher (1997)

“Wolves had got under my skin and my mind was in turmoil. I felt nothing but contempt for my fellow man and nothing but admiration for these creatures that had admitted me into their world. Theirs was the world I wanted to stay in. It was safer than mine, more disciplined, and I had a greater sense of belonging.”

Shaun Ellis (1977) American football player, defensive end

The Man who lives with Wolves (2010)

World, Sense

“I've begged more than a starved beggar and dearly miss my princess mi amore cadenza
And afraid of the laughter of the cunning Moon, the fierce hunter who starves himself to win the prey,
Under the threat of things that will never pass…
For all terror is nothing more than nightmares that are made manifest for forever in the prison that is a false reality.”

Tristan Corbière (1845–1875) French poet

Heures, http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Heures third stanza, from Les arountia tyinse (1865).

Reality, Laughter, Princess, Falseness

“At fifteen years of age, when first my parents settled down in London (temporarily as they thought) I had never been in England, never had an English friend or English governess, or English tuition of any sort or kind. I did not speak one word of English. Then how did it all come about? Neo-Victorians and Neo-Georgians will put it down to destiny; others to predestination. I, in my humble way, put it down to the Will of God. And looking back on my long life and its many changes I can trace the links of my chain of life that began on the great plains of Hungary, continued through the heart of London, and find me now at this hour of writing this book in Monte Carlo jotting down all that I can remember of those links which led me one by one to the conception of my first literary work. If any one of those links had not been, if any turn of event in my life had been different, I would probably have ended my days in the country of my birth and known nothing of the happiness which comes from love, from the affection of friends (such as one meets in England) and from success in the work to which I devoted so many years of my life.”

Emma Orczy (1865–1947) Hungarian-British author of "The Scarlet Pimpernel"

Source: Links in the Chain of Life (1947), Ch. 1

Love, Life, God, Happiness

“It may be observed of mathematicians that they only meddle with such things as are certain, passing by those that are doubtful and unknown. They profess not to know all things, neither do they affect to speak of all things. What they know to be true, and can make good by invincible arguments, that they publish and insert among their theorems. Of other things they are silent and pass no judgment at all, choosing rather to acknowledge their ignorance, than affirm anything rashly. They affirm nothing among their arguments or assertions which is not most manifestly known and examined with utmost rigour, rejecting all probable conjectures and little witticisms. They submit nothing to authority, indulge no affection, detest subterfuges of words, and declare their sentiments, as in a court of justice, without passion, without apology; knowing that their reasons, as Seneca testifies of them, are not brought to persuade, but to compel.”

Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician

Source: Mathematical Lectures (1734), p. 64

Justice, Passion

“Play: Work that you enjoy doing for nothing.”

Evan Esar (1899–1995) American writer

Esar's Comic Dictionary

“Roger: Umm.. I don't know! It's kind of um.. a little more.. it's more in the darks of being really singy songy. It's nothing super blazing fast. There's not any super slow reggae kind of thing that we've done before. It's not like that. It's sort of in the tempo and sort of really poppy and really catchy. There's some really good stuff. There are some songs I'm really excited about. It's always been melody based I think. When we did our last record, we wrote like 32 songs and they ended coming out on two separate CDs. And this time we didn't really do that! We kind of just took 15 ideas and used those as the focal point and then we wrote around those and just improved on those 14 and kept bringing things in and out of those songs as opposed to having a whole bunch of songs. Whether that's better or not, I don't know. It definitely seems a bit more focused. We don't have a bunch of extra songs or anything like that. When is was time to actually record, we have everything pretty well sorted and that was cool. There's definitely some good stuff on there.”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

Idea, Thinking, Time

“The Times was rushing to assure its readers that "prominent Islamic scholars and theologians in the West say unequivocally that nothing in Islam countenances the Sept. 11 actions." (That's if you set aside Muhammad's many specific instructions to kill nonbelievers whenever possible).”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2004, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) (2004)

Time

“I, for one, see this in much the same way I saw our denial of rights — as nothing short of a denial of our humanity. Not one of us has the "gospel," nor are our opinions based upon some revealed precepts to be taken as faith. As thinking, rational individuals, not one of us can claim infallibility, even from the overwhelming advantage of hindsight and Monday-morning quarterbacking.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Faith, Way, Thinking

“Other religions, indeed, are quite as full of miracles; the heathen boasts of many, so does the Turk; no religion is without them, and this it is which also makes the Christian miracles so doubtful, and provokes us to ask: "Did the events really happen? Were the attendant circumstances such as are stated? Did they come to pass naturally, or by craft, or by chance?"… those who would build Christianity upon miracles give it nothing firm, deep or substantial for a foundation.”

Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) German philosopher

Source: Fragments from Reimarus: Consisting of Brief Critical Remarks on the Object of Jesus and His Disciples as Seen in the New Testament, p. 74

Religion, Nature, Chance

“I have been depressed for days. Profoundly sad and solemn. I think the time is coming for struggle and uncertainty. It comes into every serious and beautiful life. I knew all along that it had to come. I've been expecting it. I am not afraid of it. I know it will mature and help me develop. But everything seems so serious and so hard, serious and sad to me. I walk through this huge city [Paris]. I look into a thousand thousand eyes. But I almost never find a soul there... And beneath it all flows the Styx [the Seine], deep and slow, knowing nothing of these brooks and wells of ours. I am sad. And all around me ate the heavy, pregnant, perfumed breezes of spring..”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

excerpt of her Journal, Paris 1897; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 195
1897

Life, Sadness, Beauty, Soul

“I ached everywhere. It was hard to separate the dull agony of the shattered leg from the ache in my head and my back and my guts. My skull felt as if there were a ball of mercury in it that shifted ponderously long seconds after my head itself turned. The vertigo made me sick again, but I had nothing left to vomit. I hung on the tangle of branches and contemplated the glories of adventure.”

Dan Simmons book The Rise of Endymion

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 14 (p. 272)

“Art comes instinctively to us, but it is so uncertain. I have in front of me photographs of all Picasso’s best works. The mere I admire them the further I feel myself removed from all art, it seems so easy, so limited! We are part of the world creation, and we ourselves create nothing.”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

Source: 1930 - 1941, from 'Arshile Gorky, – Goats on the roof' (2009), p. 168: in a letter to his future wife Agnes Magruder (Mougouch), 7 Mai 1941

World, Art, Feeling, Parting

“There's nothing I enjoy more than sitting down with a big piece of marmite on toast and reading through the archives of a good webcomic. The only problem is that the good webcomics are all hidden behind pile upon pile of testicle sweat masquerading as entertainment.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

The Only Good Comics on the Internet
Fully Ramblomatic, Features

Problem, Reading

“759. Give not S. Peter so much, to leave Saint Paul nothing.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

“Religion is usually nothing but a supplement to or even a substitute for education, and nothing is religious in the strict sense which is not a product of freedom.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) German poet, critic and scholar

“Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798)”, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, trans. (Pennsylvania University Press:1968) #233
Athenäum (1798 - 1800)

Education, Religion, Sense, Freedom

“In religious matters a traveller loses nothing by civility.”

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author

Coth, in Book Four : Coth at Porutsa, Ch. XX : Idolatry of an Alderman
The Silver Stallion (1926)

Travel

“Reengineering cannot be planned meticulously and accomplished in small and cautious steps. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition with an uncertain result.”

Michael Hammer (1948–2008) American academic

Source: "Reengineering work: don't automate, obliterate," 1990, p. 105

“A stylized version of our IKEA present. It is talking about very simple concepts. We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of shopping. There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight, nothing to overcome, nothing to explore. In that societal emasculation this everyman is created.”

David Fincher (1962) American film director

About Fight Club
Gavin Smith goes one-on-one with David Fincher (1999)

Fight

“I beg you not to listen to the experts in this country anymore. The fools disguised in tweed jackets or ascots of the Ivy League campuses. The scholars and the experts and those who have been around in the State Department forever, blahdy blahdy blahdy. They couldn't find their way through an unlocked door at a locksmith shop. They come on TV and they lecture you about how everything is fine and everything is in a box. I have news for you: I believe it was the great philosopher Depeche Mode that said "nothing is impossible."”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

Life is outside of the box now and if you're inside of the box, you'll suffocate.
2014-12-16
The Glenn Beck Program
http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/12/16/three-unbelievable-news-stories-three-crazy-glenn-predictions-one-must-watch-monologue/, quoted in * 2014-12-17
'I See The Future': Glenn Beck Begs His Audience 'Not To Listen To The Experts In This Country Anymore'
Kyle
Mantyla
RightWingWatch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/i-see-future-glenn-beck-begs-his-audience-not-listen-experts-country-anymore
2014-12-19
2010s, 2014

Life, Fools, Way, Country

“I hold in fact
(1) That small portions of space are in fact of a nature analogous to little hills on a surface which is on the average flat; namely, that the ordinary laws of geometry are not valid in them.
(2) That this property of being curved or distorted is continually being passed on from one portion of space to another after the manner of a wave.
(3) That this variation of the curvature of space is what really happens in that phenomenon which we call the motion of matter, whether ponderable or etherial.
(4) That in the physical world nothing else takes place but this variation, subject possibly to the law of continuity.”

William Kingdon Clifford On the Space-Theory of Matter

Abstract
On the Space-Theory of Matter (read Feb 21, 1870)

World, Law, Nature

“.. momentarily, we (Erich Heckel, Max Pechstein, and I) are once again at Moritzburg. There is nothing more delightful than nudes in open air.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

note, 1910; in: ' 'Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: ein Künstlerleben in Selbstzeugnissen' ', Andreas Gabelmann; Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, Germany 2010, p. 36
the location was a baroque hunting lodge at the Moritzburg Ponds a few miles from Dresden
1905 - 1915

“.. and to think now that great mathematicians find my work interesting because I am able to illustrate their theories. They can not imagine that I was such a bad pupil in mathematics. I don't understand it myself neither. I never could understand why it was necessary to prove something that everyone already sees. I saw it, I knew it, so it is how it is… But yes, you had to prove it. I did overcome it when I realized I can make something else - I thought I was a good-for-nothing. In my family there were no other artists to find... I was just a weird duck, right?”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van M.C. Escher, in het Nederlands): En als je nu bedenkt dat grote wiskundigen mijn werk interessant vinden, omdat ik in staat ben hun theorieën te illustreren. Ze kunnen zich helemaal niet voorstellen dat ik zo slecht was in wiskunde. Ik snap er zelf ook niets van. Ik begreep niet dat je iets moest bewijzen wat iedereen ziet. Ik zag het, ik wist, het is toch zo.. .Maar jawel hoor, je moest het bewijzen. Ik ben er bovenuit gekomen toen ik me realiseerde, dat ik wat anders kon. Ik dacht, dat ik een nietsnut was. Ik kom uit een milieu waar geen artiesten in waren.. ..Ik was een rare eend in de bijt, he?
1960's, M.C. Escher, interviewed by Bibeb', 1968

Family, Imagination, Mathematics, Understanding

“It seemed to him that the Order of St Clement labored under the curse of mediocrity, and had done so almost from the beginning. In Europe, the Clementines hadn't (it was always said) recovered from the French Revolution. It was certain that they hadn't ever really got going in the New World. Their history revealed little to brag about-one saint (the Holy Founder) and a few bishops of missionary sees, no theologians worthy of the name, no original thinkers, not even a scientist. The Clementines were unique in that they were noted for nothing at all. They were in bad shape all over the world. The Chicago province was probably better off than the others, but that wasn't saying much. Their college was failing, their high schools were a breakeven proposition at best, and their parishes, except for a few, were in unsettled parts of Texas and New Mexico where no order in its right mind would go. The latest white elephant was an abandoned sanitarium in rural Minnesota! But that was typical of Father Boniface and the rest of them. They just didn't know a bad thing when they saw it-or a good one.”

J. F. Powers (1917–1999) American writer

Morte d’Urban (1962)

World, School, History, Parting

“Where does the hand become the wrist?
where does the neck become the shoulder? The watershed
and then the weight, whatever turns up and tips us over that
razor's edge
between something and nothing, between
one and the other.”

Simon Armitage (1963) Poet, playwright, novelist

'Gooseberry Season', from Kid.

“"But, doctor, what will happen to my teeth and bones if I stop drinking milk?" Nothing. Nothing that wouldn't have happened anyway.”

Frank Oski (1932–1996) American pediatrician

Source: Don't Drink Your Milk! (1983), p. 50

Drink

“"Faster! Faster! Move, you lazy good-for-nothings!" the Hungarian police were screaming.
That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Night (1960)

Death, Hate, Hell

“Isn't the use by America and some Western governments of their fire against others in the world including, or in the forefront of whom are the Arabs and the Muslims, one of the most important reasons of the lack of stability in the world at the present time? Isn't the evil inflicted on America in the act of September 11, 2001, and nothing else, a result of this and other acts? This is the main question and this is what the American administration along with of the Western governments or the Western public opinion should answer in the first place with serenity and responsibility, without emotional reaction and without the use of the same old methods that America used against the world.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

Open letter to the American peoples http://www.wadinet.de/news/iraq/nw273_saddamopenletter.htm (15 September 2001).

World, Question, Evil, Time

“The most significant feature of our histories, however, is the religious zeal felt or exhibited by the swordsmen of Islam before and after the “infidels” who resisted “were sent to hell”, the Brahmans massacred or molested or expelled, idols desecrated, temples demolished, and mosques raised in their stead. The prophet of Islam appears in a dream and bids a sultãn to start on the “holy expedition”, leaving no doubt that the “victory of religion” was assured. Amîr Khusrû was very eloquent about the transformation that was taking place. When the hordes of Alãu’d-Dîn Khaljî sacked the temple of Somnath, he exulted, “The sword of Islãm purified the land as the Sun purifies the earth.” His enthusiasm broke all bounds when the same hordes swept over South India: “The tongue of the sword of the Khalifa of the time, which is the tongue of the flame of Islãm, has imparted light to the entire darkness of Hindustãn by the illumination of its guidance… and several capitals of the gods of the Hindus in which Satanism had prevailed since the time of Jinns, have been demolished. All these impurities of infidelity have been cleansed by the Sultãn’s destruction of idol-temples, beginning with his first expedition to Deogîr, so that the flames of the fight of the law illumine all these unholy countries… God be praised!” One wonders whether the poet of Islam is being honoured or slandered when he is presented in our own times as the pioneer of Secularism. Or, perhaps, Secularism in India has a meaning deeper than that we find in the dictionaries or dissertations on political science. We may not be much mistaken if, seeing its studied exercise in blackening everything Hindu and whitewashing everything Islamic, we suspect that this Secularism is nothing more than the good old doctrine of Islam in disguise.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

God, Religion, Law, Dreams

“Nothing less will content me, than whole America.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)

“Among other myseries what I pray you tá be greater than whē a man riseth frō bed in the morning, to be incertaine of his returne to rest againe. or being in bed, whether his life shall continue tyll he ryse. besydes that, what labour, what hazard & care, are men constrained to abyde with these our brittle bodies, our feeble force, and incertayne lyfe: so as no nacion I thinke a man better or more fitlye named than the Spaniard, who in their language do terme a man shadow. And sure ther is nothing to be found of lesse assurance or soner passed than the lyfe of man, no… may more rightly be resembled to a shadow.”

Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576) Italian Renaissance mathematician, physician, astrologer

Cardanus Comforte (1574)

Life, Men, Thinking

“If you should ask me where I've been all this time
I have to say "Things happen."
I have to dwell on stones darkening the earth,
on the river ruined in its own duration:
I know nothing save things the birds have lost,
the sea I left behind, or my sister crying.
Why this abundance of places? Why does day lock
with day? Why the dark night swilling round
in our mouths? And why the dead?”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Si me preguntáis en dónde he estado
debo decir "Sucede."
Debo de hablar del suelo que oscurecen las piedras,
del río que durando se destruye:
no sé sino las cosas que los pájaros pierden,
el mar dejado atrás, o mi hermana llorando.
¿Por qué tantas regiones, por qué un día
se junta con un día? ¿Por qué una negra noche
se acumula en la boca? ¿Por qué muertos?
No Hay Olvido (Sonata) (There's No Forgetting (Sonata) or There is No Oblivion (Sonata)), Residencia II (Residence II), VI, stanza 1.
Alternate translation by Donald D. Walsh:
If you ask me where I have been
I must say "It so happens."
I must speak of the ground darkened by stones,
of the river that enduring is destroyed:
I know only the things that the birds lose,
the sea left behind, or my sister weeping.
Why so many regions, why does a day
join a day? Why does a black night
gather in the mouth? Why dead people?
Residencia en la Tierra (Residence on Earth) (1933)

Bird, Sister, Time, Cry

“To choose this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good, and nothing can be good for us without being good for all.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Existentialism and Human Emotions (1957)

Evil, Time

“This power of attention is that which perhaps more than any thing else distinguishes those who do great things from those who can do nothing well.”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I

“Founders fit the definition of a composer: they see something no one else does. And to help them create it from nothing, they surround themselves with world-class performers.”

Steve Blank (1953) American businessman

Forbes "Entrepreneurship is an Art Not a Job" http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveblank/2013/03/29/entrepreneurship-is-an-art-not-a-job/#754e53231d5b. March 29, 2013.

World, Help

“I do nothing, granted. But I see the hours pass — which is better than trying to fill them.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“I agree that is the law, though I think it is a hard law; but we have nothing to do with the question of hardship.”

William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher (1815–1899) British lawyer, judge and politician

In re Perkins (1890), L. R. 24 Q. B. D. 618.

Law, Question, Thinking

“I believe that the charges are baseless and I knew that I had nothing to worry about on that score. But after one full round in the courts, I was beginning to feel embarrassed.”

P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) Indian politician

In an interview with Vir Sanghvi after he resigned from the post of Congress President and on the issue of corruption case, in "The charges are baseless and I knew I had nothing to worry about".

Feeling

“This argument too shows that in truth we know nothing about anything, but every man shares the generally prevailing opinion.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Fragments

Truth

“The problem with happy endings," Tan'elkoth said, "is that nothing is ever truly over.”

Matthew Stover book Blade of Tyshalle

(I.3) Del Rey, p. 89
Blade of Tyshalle (2001)

Happiness, Problem

“The professor must be an obscurantist or he is nothing; he has a special and unmatchable talent for dullness, his central aim is not to expose the truth clearly, but to exhibit his profundity, his esotericity - in brief to stagger sophomores and other professors.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Source: 1920s, Prejudices, Third Series (1922), Ch. 15 "The Dismal Science"

Truth

“There is nothing an official hates more than a person who makes up his own mind.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer

Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy (2006)

Hate, Personality

“And if nothing is repeated in the same way, all things are last things.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Voces (1943)

Way

“The end is easily foretold,
When every blessed thing you hold
Is made of silver, or of gold,
You long for simple pewter.
When you have nothing else to wear
But cloth of gold and satins rare,
For cloth of gold you cease to care—
Up goes the price of shoddy.
In short, whoever you may be,
To this conclusion you'll agree,
When everyone is somebodee,
Then no one's anybody!”

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

The Gondoliers (1889)

Clothes

“We women have before us the noblest end to which a finite creature may attain; and our duty is nothing else than the fulfilment of the whole moral law, the attainment of every human virtue.”

Frances Power Cobbe (1822–1904) Irish writer, social reformer, anti-vivisection activist and leading suffragette

Lecture I, p. 23
The Duties of Women (1881)

Women, Law

“Framed with regard to the established religion, this philosophy runs essentially parallel thereto; and so, being perhaps intricately composed, curiously trimmed, and thus rendered difficult to understand, it is always at bottom and in the main nothing but a paraphrase and apology of the established religion. Accordingly, for those teaching under these restrictions, there is nothing left but to look for new turns of phrase and forms of speech by which they arrange the contents of the established religion. Distinguished in abstract expressions and thereby rendered dry and dull, they then go by the name of philosophy.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

In Folge hievon wird, so lange die Kirche besteht, auf den Universitäten stets nur eine solche Philosophie gelehrt werden dürfen, welche, mit durchgängiger Rücksicht auf die Landesreligion abgefaßt, dieser im Wesentlichen parallel läuft und daher stets,—allenfalls kraus figurirt, seltsam verbrämt und dadurch schwer verständlich gemacht,—doch im Grunde und in der Hauptsache nichts Anderes, als eine Paraphrase und Apologie der Landesreligion ist. Den unter diesen Beschränkungen Lehrenden bleibt sonach nichts Anderes übrig, als nach neuen Wendungen und Formen zu suchen, unter welchen sie den in abstrakte Ausdrücke verkleideten und dadurch fade gemachten Inhalt der Landesreligion aufstellen, der alsdann Philosophie heißt.
Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, pp. 152–153, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 140
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), On Philosophy in the Universities

Religion, Understanding

“Wheels keep on turning and turning and turning
And nothing's disturbing the way they go around.”

Edie Brickell (1966) singer from the United States

"The Wheel"
Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars (1988)

Way

“The question of whether America is in decline cannot be answered yes or no. There is no yes or no. Both answers are wrong, because the assumption that somehow there exists some predetermined inevitable trajectory, the result of uncontrollable forces, is wrong. Nothing is inevitable. Nothing is written. For America today, decline is not a condition. Decline is a choice. Two decades into the unipolar world that came about with the fall of the Soviet Union, America is in the position of deciding whether to abdicate or retain its dominance. Decline — or continued ascendancy — is in our hands.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Article, October 19, 2009, "Decline is a Choice" http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/056lfnpr.asp at weeklystandard.com. <br class="br">2000s, 2009

World, Question

“Integrity and honesty, not objectivity and certainty, are the highest virtues to which the theological enterprise can aspire. From this perspective, all human claims to possess objectivity, certainty, or infallibility are revealed as nothing but the weak and pitiable pleas of frantically insecure people who seek to live in an illusion because reality has proved to be too difficult.”

John Shelby Spong (1931) American bishop

Source: Resurrection: Myth or Reality? (1994), p. 99

People, Reality

“Once again there appears to be a considerable difference of opinion. I wanted a series with distinction, I have no interest in a series which is purely and uniquely suspenseful but makes no comment about anything. But all they seem to want is maniacs in a cemetery. When I complain they pat me on the head, condescend, and hope I go away. When I was on the Twilight Zone I took the bows, but I also took the brickbats, because when it was bad it was usually my fault, but when it's bad on the Night Gallery, I had nothing to do with it, yet my face is on it all the time.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Rod Serling: American Masters.
Other

Hope, Appearance, Time, Night

“One has very little influence upon one's children. Their characters are what they are and one can do nothing to change them.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Family Life

Children, Change

“To make a law final, so as not to be reached by Congress, is, by mere legislation, to fasten a new provision on the Constitution. Nay, more; it gives to the law a character which the very Constitution docs not possess. The wise fathers did not treat the country as a Chinese foot, never to grow after infancy; but, anticipating Progress, they declared expressly that their great Act is not final. According to the Constitution itself, there is not one of its existing provisions — not even that with regard to fugitives from labor — which may not at all times be reached by amendment, and thus be drawn into debate. This is rational and just. Sir, nothing from man's hands, nor law, nor constitution, can be final. Truth alone is final.”

Charles Sumner (1811–1874) American abolitionist and politician

"Freedom National, Slavery Sectional," speech in the Senate (July 27, 1852)

Truth, Law, Time, Country

“Morality knows nothing of geographical boundaries, or distinctions of race.”

Herbert Spencer book Social Statics

Pt. IV, Ch. 30 : General Considerations
Social Statics (1851)

“I have a bag full of words, and when one of us comes up with a good piece of music, I look in the bag to see if anything there will fit. If nothing does, I sit down and try to put down on paper what the music makes me feel; very rarely will a piece of writing inspire a piece of music.”

Robert Smith (musician) (1959) English singer, songwriter and musician

CANOE 1996

Music, Feeling

“I have gathered a posy of other men’s flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine own.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

J'ai seulement fait ici un amas de fleurs étrangères, n'y ayant fourni du mien que le filet à les lier.
Book III, Ch. 12 : Of Physiognomy
Essais (1595), Book III

Men, Flowers

“Machiavelli, however, took his bearings from people as they are. He defined the political project as making the best of this flawed material. He knew (in words Kant would write almost three centuries later) that nothing straight would be made from the crooked timber of humanity.”

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

Speech at Washington University, Danforth Center for Religion and Politics, St. Louis, broadcast (4 December 2012)
2010s

People

Quotes about nothing page 65

Quotes about nothing
page 65