Quotes about nothing
page 87

“Ah," said Dolly, with soothing gravity, "it's like the night and the morning, and the sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the harvest — one goes and the other comes, and we know nothing how nor where. We may strive and scrat and fend, but it's little we can do arter all — the big things come and go wi' no striving o' our'n — they do, that they do; and I think you're in the right on it to keep the little un, Master Marner, seeing as it's been sent to you, though there's folks as thinks different.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Source: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861), Chapter 14 (at page 121)

Thinking, Sleep, Night

“The favorite themes that the animus of the woman dredges up within her sound like this: "I am seeking nothing but love, but 'he' doesn't love me." Or, "There are only two possibilities in this situation," both of which of course are unpleasant (the negative animus never believes in exceptions). One can seldom contradict the animus, for it/he is always right; the only problem is that his opinion is not based on the actual situation. For the most part he gives utterance to seemingly reasonable views, which, however, are slightly at a tangent to what is under discussion.”

Marie-Louise von Franz (1915–1998) Swiss psychologist and scholar

Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche (1994), The Animus, a Woman's Inner Man

Love, Problem, Parting

“I felt eyes upon me, and they pulled me away. I looked at the gathering of eager cops; some were merely curious, while others, I knew, sought their own secret satisfaction. They all wanted to see it, my face, a defense attorney's face, here in this musty place where murder was more than a case file, where the victim was flesh and blood, the smell that of family gone to dust.I felt their eyes. I knew what they wanted, and so I turned to look again upon the almost empty clothes, the flash of bone so pale and curving. But I would give them nothing, and my body did not betray me, for which I was grateful. For what I felt was the return of a long-quiescent rage, and the certain conviction that this was the most human my father had ever appeared to me.”

John Hart (1965) American author with multiple books and awards

Source: The King of Lies (2006), Ch. 1.

Secret, Family, Appearance, Rage

“I find that trials help very much in detaching us from this earth. They make us look higher than this world. Here below, nothing can satisfy us. We cannot enjoy a little rest except in being ready to do God's will. [-] Truly, life isn't cheerful. It is very difficult to be attached to it. Au revoir, dear Pauline, my Confidante.”

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

March 18(?), 1888
General Correspondence

Life, God, World, Help

“See that you receive Christ with all your heart. As there is nothing in Christ that may be refused, so there is nothing in you from which He must be excluded.”

John Flavel (1627–1691) English Presbyterian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 158.

Heart, Christ

“Just as you celebrated your Muslim son’s sacrifice, there are others who could give testimony to their loss due to those Muslim soldiers — and I use lower case reference to them (soldiers) because they dishonored the oath and were traitors to our Code of Honor. Your son was not, but that had nothing to do with him being a Muslim: he was an American Soldier.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Open letter to Khizr M. Khan (31 July 2016)

Loss

“Poverty of body in itself mattered nothing; what Francis wanted was poverty of pride, and the external robe or the bare feet were outward and necessary forms of protection against its outward display. Against riches or against all external and visible vanity, rules and laws could be easily enforced if it were worth while, although the purest humility would be reached only by those who were indifferent and unconscious of their external dress; but against spiritual pride the soul is defenceless, and of all its forms the subtlest and the meanest is pride of intellect. […] Lord Bacon held much the same opinion. [..:] "Let men please themselves as they will in admiring and almost adoring the human mind, this is certain:— that, as an uneven mirror distorts the rays of objects according to its own figure and section, so the mind … cannot be trusted …"”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Bacon's first object was the same as that of Francis, to humiliate and if possible destroy the pride of human reason; both of them knew that this was their most difficult task.
The Bacon quote is from the Preface to The Great Instauration (1620).
Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Men, Law, Soul, Indifference

“The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consist in nothing more than the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

Life and Human Nature.
Afterthoughts (1931)

Life, Star, Perfection

“Partly what you need to do is decide what your highest value is. It's the star. What are you aiming for? You can decide. But there are some criteria. It should be good for you in a way that facilitates your moving forward. Maybe it should be good for you in a way that's also good for your family, as well as for the larger community. It should cover the domain of life. There's constraints on what you should regard as a value, but within those constraints you have the choice. You have choice. The thing is that people will carry a heavy load if they get to pick the load. And they think, 'well, I won't carry any load.' Ok, fine, but then you'll be like the slead dog that has nothing to pull. You'll get bored. People are pack animals. They need to pull against a wait. And that's not true for everyone. It's not true for conscientious people. For the typical person, they'll eat themselves up unless they have a load. This is why there's such an opiate epidemic among so many dispossessed white, middle aged, unemployed men in the U. S. They lose their job, and then they're done. They despise themselves. They develop chronic pain syndromes and depression. And the chronic pain is treated with opiates. That's what we're doing. And you should watch when you talk to young men about responsibility. They're so thrilled about it. It just blows me away. Really?! That's what the counter-culture is? Grow up and do something useful. Really? I can do that? Oh, I'm so excited by that idea. No one ever mentioned that before. Rights, rights, rights, rights. Jesus. It's appalling. People have had enough of that. And they better have, because it's a non-productive mode of being. Responsibility, man. That's where the meaning in life is.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Life, Men, Pain, People

“In America we have nothing that takes the place of the gods and goddesses and heroes and demigods of the ancient world. There is nothing to connect us with the soil. We have no mythology. It has never been possible to construct one.”

Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) American poet, writer, anarchist, academic and conscientious objector

"Home Schooling and Indian Lore"
An Autobiographical Novel (1991)

God, World

“To become sober is: to come to oneself in self-knowledge and before God as nothing before him, yet infinitely, unconditionally engaged. P. 104”

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

1850s, Judge For Yourselves! 1851 (1876)

God, Knowledge

“The subject matter of mathematics is the expressions themselves together with the rules for manipulating them—nothing more.”

Edward Nelson (1932–2014) American mathematical physicist and logician

[Nelson, E., Predicative Arithmetic, 1986, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 0-691-08455-6, https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pvr_AwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false, 86018730, 14001745, 173, harv]

Mathematics

“… style without substance is nothing, the substance in the story was the most important thing. Of course, there is a layer of style. If I were a director working in a different era, I would have had to be at MGM. I don't think I'd probably know how to make anything but enhanced reality, because that's what comes naturally to me.”

Tom Ford (1961) American fashion designer

A singular man, Shapiro, Gregg, December 24, 2009, The Bay Area Reporter, April 18, 2016 http://www.ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?sec=film&article=704,

Nature, Thinking, Reality

“…against which we should direct all our force, the navy of France: in the destruction of her marine we might see some hope of recovering America; but while our army remained in that country, we were to expect nothing from its operations. On the continent of Europe, it might be employed; there we might contend with France, in a manner that would make her feel that her own consequence was at stake. But the old Whig system of alliances on the continent had been given up, and we were left to fight all our battles by ourselves. If these alliances were renewed, France might then be taught, that rashness, not prudence, had made her enter into the American confederacy…America…might be won in Europe, while England might be ruined in America.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Speech in the House of Commons (14 December 1778), reprinted in the The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. Vol. XX (London: 1814), p. 79.
1770s

Hope, Feeling, Fight, Country

“Nothing is less forgiven than setting Patterns Men have no mind to follow.”

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician

Princes (their Rewards of Servants).
Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Political Thoughts and Reflections

Men

“What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.' I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen. I mean, we had a mining accident that was very tragic and I've met a lot of these miners and their families. They're very brave people to do a dangerous job. But then we come in and it's always someone's fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and 2010-05-05 explosion at Massey's Upper Big Branch mine
reference to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar telling CNN on 2010-05-02, "Our job basically is to keep the boot on the neck of British Petroleum."
2010s

People, Family, Game, Business

“I have nothing to speak of but my self-and what can I say but what I feel”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds (August 24, 1819)
Letters (1817–1820)

Feeling

“I'd never seen anything more beautiful — even as I ran, gasping and screaming, I could appreciate that. And the last seven months meant nothing. And [Edward's] words in the forest meant nothing. And it did not matter if he did not want me. I would never want anything but him, no matter how long I lived.”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Bella Swan, p. 451
Twilight series, New Moon (2006)

Beauty

“If I were reincarnated, I’d want to come back a buzzard. Nothing hates him or envies him or wants him or needs him. He is never bothered or in danger, and he can eat anything.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Paris Review interview (1958)

Hate, Envy

“Hitchin' on a twilight train
Ain't nothing here that I care to take along.
Maybe a song
To sing when I want.
No need to say please to no man
For a happy tune.”

Neil Diamond (1941) American singer-songwriter

Cracklin' Rosie
Song lyrics, Tap Root Manuscript (1970)

Happiness, Singing, Training

“The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

"Our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature" (1863) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE2/Phen.html 1860s

“The gentle minde by gentle deeds is knowne.
For a man by nothing is so well bewrayd,
As by his manners.”

Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene

Canto 3, stanza 1; Spenser here is referencing and paraphrasing a statement from the "Wife of Bath's Tale" of Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer: "he is gentil that doth gentil dedis."
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book VI

“The conventional Big Bang theory says nothing about where all the matter came from. The theory really assumes that for every particle that we see in the universe today, there was, at the very beginning, at least some precursor particle, if not the same particle, with no explanation of where all those particles came from.”

Alan Guth (1947) American theoretical physicist and cosmologist

Lecture 1: Inflationary Cosmology: Is Our Universe Part of a Multiverse? Part I.
The Early Universe (2012)

Universe

“Montag, you're looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. I'm one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the "guilty," but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

Way, Time

“The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government.”

James K. Polk (1795–1849) American politician, 11th President of the United States (in office from 1845 to 1849)

Inaugural Address (4 March 1845).

World, Fear

“I'm a games player by nature. Don't get me wrong. Nothing that involves movement. Like leaving my chair.”

Maureen Lipman (1946) British actress, columnist and comedienne

How Was it For You?

Game, Nature

“Ruffian or devil, black as hell or bright as angels, thenceforth he was nothing to me.”

Charles Brockden Brown (1771–1810) American novelist, historian and editor

Wieland; or, the Transformation (1798)

Angels, Hell

“Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public RECORDS to be True.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Annotations to An Apology for the Bible by R. Watson
1790s

“Chaos was a far subtler force than most people realised. It would be so easy to sense if it threw off thunderbolts or sent barely sensed thrummings through the fabric of reality, but it was nothing more than the possible made probable. It did not break or bend any laws of nature or tip the balance of the universe.”

Karen Lord (1968) Barbadian novelist and sociologist of religion

Source: Redemption in Indigo (2010), Chapter 8 “The Indigo Lord Spies on the Citizens of Makendha” (p. 64)

People, Law, Nature, Reality

“There is nothing to square. I support Mr. Trump and his policies 100 percent.”

Katrina Pierson (1976) Political spokesperson

In an email to The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-katrina-pierson-lgbt_us_57a214dae4b0104052a09c00 (August 3, 2016)

Support

“The History of Institutions cannot be mastered – can scarcely be approached – without an effort. It affords little of the romantic incident or of the picturesque grouping which constitute the charm of History in general, and holds out small temptation to the mind that requires to be tempted to the study of Truth. But it…abounds in examples of that continuity of life, the realisation of which is necessary to give the reader a personal hold on the past and a right judgment of the present. For the roots of the present lie deep in the past, and nothing in the past is dead to the man who would learn how the present comes to be what it is.”

William Stubbs (1825–1901) English historian and clergyman

The Constitutional History of England (1873-8; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903) vol. 1, p. iii.

Life, Truth, Lie, History

“I am so constituted that I had rather read bad stuff than nothing.”

Burton Rascoe (1892–1957) American writer

As quoted in the dedication to The Pumpkin Coach (1935) by Louis Paul

Reading

“You start to think, when you’re younger, how important everything is and how things have to go right—your job, your career, your life, your choices, and all of that. Then, after a while, you start to realise that – I’m talking the big picture here – eventually you die, and eventually the sun burns out and the earth is gone, and eventually all the stars and all the planets in the entire universe go, disappear, and nothing is left at all. Nothing – Shakespeare and Beethoven and Michelangelo gone. And you think to yourself that there’s a lot of noise and sound and fury – and where’s it going? It’s not going any place… Now, you can’t actually live your life like that, because if you do you just sit there and – why do anything? Why get up in the morning and do anything? So I think it’s the job of the artist to try and figure out why, given this terrible fact, you want to go on living.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Interview with France 24 (2010) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MsuqvLIttk.

Life, Star, Thinking, Universe

“I can now see to the bottom of my own depths, there is nothing stopping my gaze, no obstacle is in the way. And there is nothing there.”

Georges Bernanos book Monsieur Ouine

The dying Monsieur Ouine, p. 243
Monsieur Ouine, 1943

Way

“I know I had everything, but not because I had it. I know because afterwards I had nothing else.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Que tuve todo lo sé, no por lo que tuve. Lo sé porque después no tuve más.
Voces (1943)

“He [ Hans Hofmann one of her art teachers] would come up to me [1937-38], look at my work, and do a critique half in English and half in German, but certainly nothing I could understand. When he left the room I would call George McNeil, who was then the monitor, over and I would ask: 'What did this man say to me?' Hoffman was teaching Cubism and that was pretty exciting. Matisse and Picasso were my highlights. It was as though I was swinging between them. First I started to work with color and then there was a heavy swing toward the linear.”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

Source: Art Talk, Conversations with 15 woman artists 1975, p. 73.

Art, Color, Understanding, Teachers

“I also remind the House that the use of confessional evidence, which is the basis of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, has led to the imprisonment of the Birmingham Six, who have now served almost 16 years in British prisons. I have visited them in prison several times… My experience of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act is that it has nothing to do with the prevention of terrorism and everything to do with policing and patrolling the Irish community in this country. I have lost count of the number of occasions that I have had telephone calls late at night from Irish people who live in my constituency, who were expecting a son, a daughter, an uncle, an aunt or a father to come across to visit them from Dublin or from Belfast, but who find that they have not arrived. They ask me, "Do you know where they are?" I have no idea where they are. We then start an amazing series of telephone calls to find out whether someone is being held under the Act. A Kafka-like mystery surrounds it and it is not clear whether that person is being held until lawyers make contact and eventually application is made for a writ of habeas corpus.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1990/mar/06/prevention-of-terrorism in the House of Commons (6 March 1990). 1990s

People, Communication, Idea, Time

“The Book of Boz is neither a novel nor a poem nor a tale. Even less is it a drama or an essay.
It is nothing except the style that inspires it and haunts it, to excess.
No points of reference here.
No beacon.
You sail wherever the wind blows.
Stories are woven, end, are reborn, with the flow, before a storm comes up to carry us further away, to the threshold of a new vision.
For, that is The Book of Boz : a work outside of norms, indefinable, created by a wanderer for other wanderers.”

Julien Friedler (1950) artist, writer

The Book of Boz http://www.spiritofboz.org/en/spirit-of-boz/the-book-of-boz/ The Spirit of Boz

Books

“When I got back into show business in 1961, I felt — for obvious reasons — that nothing in my life went right, and I realized that millions of people felt the same way. So when I first came back my catch phrase was "nothing goes right."”

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian

Early on, that was my setup for a lot of jokes.
Source: It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs (2004), p. 126.

Life, People, Way, Business

“[Pelsaert laments] “the utter subjection and poverty of the common people-poverty so great and miserable that the life of the people can be depicted or accurately described only as the home of stark want and the dwelling place of bitter woe.” He continues: “There are three classes of people who are indeed nominally free, but whose status differs very little from voluntary slavery-workmen, peons or servants and shopkeepers. For the workmen there are two scourges, the first of which is low wages. Goldsmiths, painters (of cloth or chintz), embroiderers, carpet makers, cotton or silk weavers, black-smiths, copper-smiths, tailors, masons, builders, stone-cutters, a hundred crafts in all-any of these working from morning to night can earn only 5 or 6 tackas (tankahs), that is 4 or 5 strivers in wages. The second (scourge) is (the oppression of) the Governor, the nobles, the Diwan, the Kotwal, the Bakshi, and other royal officers. If any of these wants a workman, the man is not asked if he is willing to come, but is seized in the house or in the street, well beaten if he should dare to raise any objection, and in the evening paid half his wages, or nothing at all. From these facts the nature of their food can be easily inferred… For their monotonous daily food they have nothing but a little khichri… in the day time, they munch a little parched pulse or other grain, which they say suffices for their lean stomachs… Their houses are built of mud with thatched roofs. Furniture there is little or none, except some earthenware pots to hold water and for cooking… Their bedclothes are scanty, merely a sheet or perhaps two… this is sufficient in the hot weather, but the bitter cold nights are miserable indeed, and they try to keep warm over little cowdung fires… the smoke from these fires all over the city is so great that the eyes run, and the throat seems to be choked.””

Francisco Pelsaert (1591–1630) Dutch merchant, commander of the ship Batavia

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7
Jahangir’s India

Life, People, Food, Home

“If we and the rest of the backboned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if they were to disappear, the land's ecosystems would collapse. The soil would lose its fertility. Many of the plants would no longer be pollinated. Lots of animals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals would have nothing to eat. And our fields and pastures would be covered with dung and carrion. These small creatures are within a few inches of our feet, wherever we go on land – but often, they're disregarded. We would do very well to remember them.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Closing lines
Life in the Undergrowth (2005)

World, Bird, Animals

“[about his painting 'Approaching a CityWell' Hopper painted in 1946:] I've always been interested in approaching a big city in a train, and I can't exactly describe the sensations, but they're entirely human and perhaps have nothing to do with aesthetics. There is a certain fear and anxiety and a great visual interest in the things that one sees coming into a great city. I think that's about all I can say about it.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

1941 - 1967
Source: 'Oral history interview with Edward Hopper' (1959, June 17), conducted by John Morse; 'Archives of American Art', Smithsonian Institution

Fear, Thinking, Painting, Training

“Wipe out the paints, unmould the clay, Let nothing remain of that yesterday.”

Kamala Surayya book My Story

Kamala Suraiyya Das (My Story: The Compelling Autobiography of the Most Contreversial Indian Writer)

Painting

“Nothing remains static in war or military weapons, and it is consequently often dangerous to rely on courses suggested by apparent similarities in the past.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

Unsourced

War, Past

“Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

"Root Cellar," ll. 10-11
The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)

Life

“Hope, like faith, is nothing if it is not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous.”

Thornton Wilder book The Eighth Day

The Eighth Day (1967)

Faith, Hope, Courage

“Nothing like a little judicious levity.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book The Wrong Box

The Wrong Box, ch. 7 (1889).

“In this return in love in the divine ground every divine way and activity and all the attributes of the persons are swallowed up in the rich compass of the essential unity. All the divine means and all conditions, and all living images which are reflected in the mirror of truth, lapse in the onefold and ineffable waylessness beyond reason. Here there is nothing but eternal rest in the fruitive embrace of outpouring love.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

Gnostic Society Library, From the Western Mystical tradition http://www.gnosis.org/library/coll.htm The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)

Love, Truth, Way, Personality

“Just as a primitive sextant functions on the illusion that the sun and stars rotate around the planet we are standing on, our senses give us the illusion of stability in the universe, and we accept it, because without that acceptance, nothing can be done.
Virginia Vidaura, pacing the seminar room, lost in lecture mode.
But the fact that a sextant will let you navigate accurately across an ocean does not mean that the suns and stars do rotate are us. For all that we have done, as a civilization, as individuals, the universe is not stable, nor is any single thing within it. Stars consume themselves, the universe itself rushes apart, and we ourselves are composed of matter in constant flux. Colonies of cells in temporary alliance, replicating and decaying, and housed within, an incandescent cloud of electrical impulse and precariously stacked carbon code memory. This is reality, this is self-knowledge, and the perception of it will, of course, make you dizzy.”

Richard K. Morgan book Altered Carbon

Source: Altered Carbon (2002), Chapter 28 (pp. 354-355)

Star, Knowledge, Reality, Sense

“In the American view, there is nothing vile or degraded about serving your customers either as a CEO or as a waiter. The ordinary life of production and supporting a family is more highly valued in the United States than in any other country. America is the only country in the world where we call the waiter 'sir', as if he were a knight. America has achieved greater social equality than any other society. True, there are large inequalities of income and wealth in America. In purely economic terms, Europe is more egalitarian. But Americans are socially more equal than any other people, and this is unaffected by economic disparities. Alexis de Tocqueville noticed this egalitarianism a century and a half ago and it is, if anything, more prevalent today. For all his riches, Bill Gates could not approach the typical American and say, 'Here's a $100 bill. I'll give it to you if you kiss my feet.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Most likely, the person would tell Gates to go to hell! The American view is that the rich guy may have more money, but he isn't in any fundamental sense better than anyone else.
Articles, 10 Things to Celebrate: Why I'm an Anti-Anti-American (June 2003)

Life, Money, People, World

“Most of us know, now, that Rousseau was wrong: that man, when you knock his chains off, sets up the death camps. Soon we shall know everything the eighteenth century didn't know, and nothing it did, and it will be hard to live with us.”

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

"On the Underside of the Stone," The New York Times Book Review (1953-08-23) [p. 177]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Death

“We should make it a rule never to have half confidences. They always embarrass those who give them, and dissatisfy those who receive them. They shed an uncertain light on what we want hidden, increase curiosity, entitling the recipients to know more, giving them leave to consider themselves free to talk of what they have guessed. It is far safer and more honest to tell nothing than to be silent when we have begun to tell.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Reflections on Various Subjects (1665–1678), I. On Confidence

Confidence, Light

“Oh well, memories,” said I. “Yes, even remembering in itself is sad, yet how much more its object! Don’t let yourself in for things like that, it’s not for you and it’s not for me. It only weakens one’s present position without strengthening the former one — nothing is more obvious — quite apart from the fact that the former one doesn’t need strengthening.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

"Description of a Struggle"
The Complete Stories (1971)

Sadness, Memory

“The first and most important thing to understand about politics is this: forget Right, Left, Center, socialism, fascism, or democracy. Every government that exists — or ever existed, or ever will exist — is a kleptocracy, meaning 'rule by thieves'. Competing ideologies merely provide different excuses to separate the Productive Class from what they produce. If the taxpayer/voters won't willingly fork over to end poverty, then maybe they'll cough up to fight drugs or terrorism. Conflicting ideologies, as presently constituted, are nothing more than a cover for what's really going on, like the colors of competing gangs.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Why Aren't We There Yet?"

Color, Democracy, Understanding, Fight

“Man is alone in the world, in tremendous eternal isolation. He has no object outside himself; lives for nothing else; he is far removed from being the slave of his wishes, of his abilities, of his necessities; he stands far above social ethics; he is alone. Thus he becomes one and all.”

Otto Weininger book Sex and Character

[Paraphrasing Kant] p. 162.
Sex and Character (1903)

World

“Life is nothing unless death has been faced down.”

David Gemmell book Legend

Source: Drenai series, Legend, Pt 1: Against the Horde, Ch. 18

Life, Death

“The physicians in Celle were fifteen years behind in their practice; they had heard of a new style of practice, but regarded it as a mere chimera. When I ventured to say a word or two, they did not understand me: when I appealed to some great authority, they were ignorant of it: when I spoke from my own practical experience, they looked at me, from head to foot, and said sneeringly, "Well, well; experience will come in time." But when by chance I ventured to make some proposal, they turned round, and wondered where they should find room enough in the churchyards to bury my patients. The great applause with which my Dissertations had been received in all the learned journals, even in England as well as in France, gave me courage, hoping that this circumstance would make some impression on the mind of the public; but it was generally thought I had ill employed my time, and knew little or nothing. Being obliged to frequent society, I was so disgusted with the general tone and the topics of their conversation, that I was almost in despair; at last, some young ladies treated me with more attention.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Hope, Courage, Understanding, Learning

“[I]f the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and to talk by the hour?”

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

1782, reported in Henry Brougham, Baron Brougham and Vaux, Historical Sketches of Statesmen who Flourished in the Time of George III (1845), Vol. II, p. 62.
1780s

People, Question

“"You guys are really something else, aren't you?" Archie said, pulling away from Carter's grip. "I can walk up there alone, Carter. And I'll walk back again, too." Archie's fury was a cold hard ball in his chest but he played it cool. As usual. He had a feeling nothing could go wrong. I am Archie.”

Robert Cormier book The Chocolate War

Source: The Chocolate War (1974), p. 244

Guy, Feeling

“What is peddled about nowadays as philosophy, especially that of N. S. [National Socialism], but has nothing to do with the inner truth and greatness of that movement [namely the encounter between global technology and modern humanity] is nothing but fishing in that troubled sea of values and totalities.”

Martin Heidegger book Introduction to Metaphysics

Introduction to Metaphysics (1953) — a publication of lectures of 1935.

Truth, Fish, Sea

“The situation is a difficult one. Nothing has been definitely settled yet. The manoeuvers plotted by the opponents of our territorial integrity are not about to end. Our cause may have to face other crucial developments. Accordingly, I urge you once again to remain fully mobilized, be vigilant at all times and act efficiently, at both the national and the international levels, to face the enemies of the nation and foil their illegitimate schemes.”

Mohammed VI of Morocco (1963) King of Morocco

Original French:La situation est difficile. Rien n'est encore tranché. Les manœuvres des adversaires de notre intégrité territoriale ne vont pas s'arrêter , ce qui pourrait placer notre cause devant des développements décisifs. Par conséquent, je vous exhorte tous encore une fois- à une forte mobilisation, une vigilance de tous les instants, et des initiatives efficaces, aux niveaux interne et externe, pour contrecarrer les ennemis de la nation où qu'ils se trouvent, et pour déjouer les stratagèmes illégitimes auxquels ils ont recours. Speech before the Moroccan lower house of parliament 11 October 2013 http://www.maroc.ma/en/royal-speeches/full-text-hm-kings-speech-opening-first-session-third-legislative-year-ninth

Time

“Nothing is off the table in how we think about shifting our culture to deliver on this core strategy. Organizations will change. Mergers and acquisitions will occur. Job responsibilities will evolve. New partnerships will be formed. Tired traditions will be questioned. Our priorities will be adjusted. New skills will be built. New ideas will be heard. New hires will be made. Processes will be simplified. And if you want to thrive at Microsoft and make a world impact, you and your team must add numerous more changes to this list that you will be enthusiastic about driving.”

Satya Nadella (1967) CEO of Microsoft appointed on 4 February 2014

CEO Satya Nadella outlines Microsoft’s “productivity and platform” direction, hints at big changes to come http://blogs.seattletimes.com/microsoftpri0/2014/07/10/ceo-satya-nadella-hones-microsofts-productivity-and-platform-direction-hints-at-changes-to-come in The Seattle Times (10 July 2014)

World, Idea, Question, Thinking

“[B]lessings ought rightfully to be administered, without distinction of Colour, to all descriptions of People, so they indulge themselves in the pleasing expectation, that nothing, which can be done for the relive of the unhappy objects of their care, will be either omitted or delayed.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Petition from the Pennsylvania Society (1790)

People

“The best critic of a translation is its second translation and nothing else. The person who translates a text should have something to say about that.”

Media Kashigar (1956–2017) Iranian translator, writer and poet

Source: The best critic of a translation is its second translation, Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia, 2013 https://www.cgie.org.ir/fa/news/3001

Personality

“I am increasingly convinced that one of humankind's most grievous sins is our anthropocentrism. By cutting ourselves off from the rest of creation, we are left bereft of awe and wonder and therefore of reverence and gratitude. We violate our very beings, and we have nothing but trivia to teach our young.”

Matthew Fox (priest) (1940) priest and theologian

The Reinvention of Work (New York: Harper, 1994), p. 128.

Gratitude

“Outlaw consciousness is born the moment I drop out, stop the world, cease being an actor identified with the mythic roles I have been playing in society. Change begins when I do nothing except observe. The wisdom of the railroad crossing: Stop. Look. Listen. Meditation is the healthy form of voyeurism.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 135

Wisdom, World, Change

“Freedom and determinism are only the obverse and the reverse of the two-faced fact of rational self-activity. Freedom is the thought-action of the self, defining its specific identity, and determinism means nothing but the definite character which the rational nature of the action involves. Thus freedom, far from disjoining and isolating each self from other selves, especially the Supreme Self, or God, in fact defines the inner life of each, in its determining whole, in harmony with theirs, and so, instead of concealing, opens it to their knowledge — to God, with absolute completeness eternally, in virtue of his perfect vision into all possible emergencies, all possible alternatives; to the others, with an increasing fulness, more or less retarded, but advancing toward completeness as the Rational Ideal guiding each advances in its work of bringing the phenomenal or natural life into accord with it. For our freedom, in its most significant aspect, means just our secure possession, each in virtue of his self-defining act, of this common Ideal, whose intimate nature it is to unite us, not to divide us; to unite us while it preserves us each in his own identity, harmonising each with all by harmonising all with God, but quenching none in any extinguishing Unit. Freedom, in short, means first our self-direction by this eternal Ideal and toward it, and then our power, from this eternal choice, to bring our temporal life into conformity with it, step by step, more and more.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.375-6

Life, God, Nature, Knowledge

“Wait a minute! I am not a mystic. Trying to find out the laws of nature has nothing to do with mysticism, though in the face of creation I feel very humble. It is as if a spirit is manifest infinitely superior to man's spirit. Through my pursuit in science I have known cosmic religious feelings. But I don't care to be called a mystic.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 117

Law, Feeling, Nature, Science

“Nothing important has ever come out of San Francisco, Rice-A-Roni aside.”

Michael O'Donoghue (1940–1994) American actor and writer

Mr. Mike's America: A Comic's Trek with SNL's First Head Writer (1983)

“I wanted an art that was faithful to itself [loyal] and would have nothing to do with the business of creating illusions. I dreamed of painting glasses from which no-one would ever think of drinking, beaches that would be quite unsuitable for bathing, nudes who would be definitively chaste. I wanted an art which in the first place would appear as a representation of the impossible.”

Jean Metzinger (1883–1956) French painter

Cubism was born

Faith, Dreams, Art, Drink

“If He who in Himself can lack nothing chooses to need us, it is because we need to be needed.”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Problem of Pain

The Problem of Pain (1940)

“Anita – I am so glad I'm out here – I can't tell you how much I like it. I like the plains – and I like the work [her painting] – everything is so ridiculously new – and there is something about it that just makes you glad you're living here – You understand – there is nothing here – so maybe there is something wrong with me that I am liking it so much.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Canyon, Texas, (September, 1916), p. 187
1910s, Letters to Anita Pollitzer' (1916)

Understanding, Painting

“Grow up, brother. Pack your bags, go somewhere you matter. They deserve nothing. They're not Magdalenes. You're just a bum among them. You're looking for the poor man within? Why don't you humble yourself at the feet of the rich for once? Or does your God just love useless people?”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Let the Great World Spin (2009), Book One: All Respects to Heaven, I Like it Here

Love, God, People

“We have created a false dichotomy between behaviors attributable to companion animals and those of other species that blinds us to the inherent worth and needs of all animals.
The problem is that we have constructed a society in which we are rarely forced to think about where what we consume comes from, and this extends to the animals reared for our consumption. While we pamper one set of animals, another set of animals becomes our food. The main difference is that we come to know one set of these animals, while the other set is raised and killed for us, delivered in plastic wrap and Styrofoam, and served up as dinner. If nothing else, this belies the deep moral confusion that we have about animals as a culture.”

Bob Torres American podcaster

Source: Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights (2007), p. 2

Food, Behavior, Problem, Thinking

““Is this being in love?” he suddenly wondered? It was nothing like the ballads he had heard sung—this was more irritating than uplifting.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 31, “The Councils of the Prince” (p. 500).

Love

“During the metamorphosis from ancient to European man, self-awareness, rationalism, monotheism, and morality all developed in parallel as expressions of the influence of a new form of social tradition on the organization of the individual. […] Europe forced the new mode of life till it produced a definite dissociation, for self-awareness did not then bring with it an adequate understanding of the self; religion could not offer a complete integration; the rational intellect knew nothing of its own origins, limitations or mode of operation; and morality necessarily failed to realize its aim.”

Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) Scottish industrial engineer

Source: The Next Development in Man (1948), p. 114

Life, Religion, Understanding

“In its glorification of the spirit of order, the Church seemed to be giving its sanction to the type of bourgeois who was concerned to fulfill his duties scrupulously and content to remain within his own sphere. But this bourgeois, whom modern eighteenth-century society certainly could not dispense with, was far from summing up in himself the whole spirit of his class. There was another type of bourgeois who had nothing about him of a monk transplanted into an office. He was energetic, pushing, by no means content to confine himself to a life rhythmically punctuated by work; rather, he was concerned to grow, to achieve power and wealth through his own effort. But what would the Church say of this bourgeois who was to become the monarch of the modern age? It did not like him; it could not like him; the impulse that moved him was too contrary to its own. He seemed intent on flouting God; trusting in his own strength, he seemed to want to organize his life independently of the plans of Divine Providence.”

Bernard Groethuysen (1880–1946) French literary historian, translator and writer

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 177

Life, God, Age, Effort

“Generally among intelligent people are found nothing but paralytics and among men of action nothing but fools.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

“Characters,” p. 304
Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality (1964)

Men, People, Fools, Intelligence

“It has nothing to do with belief. It's a fact. It's the truth! As a scientist, I know it's true because science is based on skepticism. We consider all possibilities equally and decide on facts based on what stands up to empirical evidence. Which is how I know that you gomers are absolutely and totally wrong.”

Orl Unho (1976)

Sex Ed (2005)

Truth, Science

“Nothing can discourage the appetite for divinity in the heart of man.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)

Heart

“There’s nothing under the ground that’s worth more than the little layer of topsoil sitting on top of it.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Comment at City Arts & Lecture Series, Herbst Theater, San Francisco, CA; 29 October 2012 http://thirtythreadbaremercies.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/the-mad-farmer-lives-a-night-with-wendell-berry/#

“I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them together.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book III, Ch. 12. Of Physiognomy
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Flowers

“It’s quite a problem for retired people, I do see. All of a sudden the evening starts starting after breakfast. All those hours with nothing to stay sober for. Or nothing to naturally stay sober during, if you see what I…We used to laugh at Malcolm’s dad, the way he used to mark up the wireless programs in Radio Times in different-coloured pencils. Never caught him listening to any of them but it was an hour taken care of.”

Kingsley Amis book The Old Devils

The Old Devils (1986)

People, Way, Nature, Problem

“As some say, Solon was the author of the apophthegm, "Nothing in excess."”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Solon, 16.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 1: The Seven Sages

“This image of herself as a not ordinary women, an image which was trembling now in his eyes, might suddenly disappear. Nothing more difficult to live up to than men’s dreams.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Children of the Albatross (1947)

Women, Men, Dreams

“Starting tomorrow, I'll be carefree and happy
Roaming the world, feeding my horse, chopping firewood
Starting tomorrow, I'll need nothing but rice and a few vegetables
In my house by the sea, warmed by the spring air”

Hai Zi (1964–1989) Chinese poet

《面朝大海，春暖花开》 ("Looking out to sea, warmed by the spring air"), trans. John Sexton http://www.china.org.cn/chinese/2011-02/01/content_26146460.htm.

Happiness, World, Spring, Horse

“The Soviet Union's propaganda clearly wishes to use public opinion in this country to get the West to reduce its own arms while doing nothing themselves. In this way they would gain nuclear superiority. This is simply not on.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Speech at Cardiff (25 May 1983), quoted in Tim Jones, "Callaghan defends deterrent", The Times (26 May 1983), p. 1. This was during the 1983 general election in which the Labour Party had a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Post-Prime Ministerial

Way, Country

“When he quit, he grew cotton down South, tinkered in real estate, owned an auto dealership, and made enough money so that once he tried to buy the Giants, and on other occasions tried to buy into the Dodgers and other clubs. Nothing ever came of it. He kept a hand in baseball, though. In 1955 he became president of the Sally League, and then there was the time he showed up for an old-timers' game at Yankee Stadium, Terry now over fifty years old, gray and more hunched than ever. It was surely an odd place to find this man who never got any fun out of baseball, as they say, but there he was, and at least he would go through the paces. He came to bat just once, and the pitch was inside, shoulder high. Terry, who held his bat at his shoulder, a motionless man at the plate, let loose his short, sweet stroke, and the ball was a blur, drilled on a long, high line into the upper deck of the Stadium, for a home run. Reporters never said whether Terry gave a little joyous leap or whether he clapped his hands or even smiled. But you know pride was like blood pounding through him.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

On Bill Terry's appearance at the New York Yankees' 1954 Old-Timers' Game https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=m6wnAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jeYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5763%2C5919284&dq=terrry-loses-lined-stands, from Greatest Giants of Them All (1967), pp. 143-144 Sports-related

Money, Smile, Home, Game

“Back in September, my friend Donald said he had his lawyers look at this from every which way and there was no issue there. There was nothing to this birther issue. Now since September, the Constitution hasn't changed. But the poll numbers have. And I recognize, I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa. But the facts and law here are really quite clear. Under longstanding U. S. law, the child of a U. S. Citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen.”

Ted Cruz (1970) American politician

Republican Presidential Debate http://www.vox.com/2016/1/15/10774204/winners-losers-republican-debate-charleston-fox-business (January 14, 2016) 2010s

Law, Way, Nature, Change

“In this present that God has made us, there is nothing unworthy our care; we stand accountable for it even to a hair; and is it not a commission to man, to conduct man according to his condition; 'tis express, plain, and the very principal one, and the Creator has seriously and strictly prescribed it to us. Authority has power only to work in regard to matters of common judgment, and is of more weight in a foreign language; therefore let us again charge at it in this place”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book III, Ch. 13
Essais (1595), Book III

God

“Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.”

Gustave Flaubert book Sentimental Education

Rien n'est humiliant comme de voir les sots réussir dans les entreprises où l'on échoue.
Pt. 1, Ch. 5
Sentimental Education (1869)

“The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant tills it.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch.2

World

“Volunteers have enriched the lives of every Canadian, and asked nothing for themselves. Now we will honour the hidden helpers and the unsung heroes of Canada. It is time to give something back to the givers.”

Romeo LeBlanc (1927–2009) Canadian politician

Source: speech on the occasion of the "Unsung Heroes" winning design (Caring Canadian Award), November 21, 1995

Time

“No one warns young people to follow Adam's example. He waited till God saw his need. Then God made Adam sleep, prepared for his mate, and brought her to him. We need more of this 'being asleep' in the will of God. Then we can receive what He brings us in His own time, if at all. Instead we are set as bloodhounds after a partner, considering everyone we see until our minds are so concerned with the sex problem that we can talk of nothing else when bull-session time comes around. It is true that a fellow cannot ignore women — but he can think of them as he ought — as sisters, not as sparring partners!”

Jim Elliot (1927–1956) Martyred Christian missionary to Ecuador

Quoted in Elisabeth Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty (1989), Chapter 4

Women, God, People, Sex

“That man has reached immortality who is disturbed by nothing material.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

“Such is life, here today, gone tomorrow! Nothing goes with one, except one's merit and demerit; good and evil deeds follow one even after death.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

[In the Company of the Holy Mother, 124-125]

Life, Death, Evil

“In the depths of China there lives a mandarin who is richer than any king spoken of in fable or in history. You know nothing about him, not his name, his face or the silks that he wears. In order for you to inherit his limitless wealth, all you have to do is to ring the bell placed on a book by your side. In that remote corner of Mongolia, he will utter a single sigh. He will then be a corpse, and at your feet you will see gold beyond the dreams of avarice. Mortal reader, will you ring the bell?”

José Maria Eça de Queiroz book The Mandarin

No fundo da China existe um mandarim mais rico que todos os reis de que a fábula ou a história contam. Dele nada conheces, nem o nome, nem o semblante, nem a seda de que se veste. Para que tu herdes os seus cabedais infindáveis, basta que toques essa campainha, posta a teu lado, sobre um livro. Ele soltará apenas um suspiro, nesses confins da Mongólia. Será então um cadáver: e tu verás a teus pés mais ouro do que pode sonhar a ambição de um avaro. Tu, que me lês e és um homem mortal, tocarás tu a campainha?
O Mandarim ("The Mandarin", 1880), trans. Margaret Jull Costa, Ch. 1.

Books, Dreams, History, Wealth

“Too good is good for nothing.”

Sheri S. Tepper book Grass

Source: Grass (1989), Chapter 16 (p. 355)