Quotes about particular (2092 quotes, page 3)

“In particular, I want to thank His Holiness Pope Francis, whose moral example shows us the importance of pursuing the world as it should be, rather than simply settling for the world as it is”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Statement on Cuban policy (December 2014)
Context: To the Cuban people, America extends a hand of friendship. Some of you have looked to us as a source of hope, and we will continue to shine a light of freedom. Others have seen us as a former colonizer intent on controlling your future. José Martí once said, “Liberty is the right of every man to be honest.” Today, I am being honest with you. We can never erase the history between us, but we believe that you should be empowered to live with dignity and self-determination. Cubans have a saying about daily life: “No es facil” –- it’s not easy. Today, the United States wants to be a partner in making the lives of ordinary Cubans a little bit easier, more free, more prosperous.
To those who have supported these measures, I thank you for being partners in our efforts. In particular, I want to thank His Holiness Pope Francis, whose moral example shows us the importance of pursuing the world as it should be, rather than simply settling for the world as it is; the government of Canada, which hosted our discussions with the Cuban government; and a bipartisan group of congressmen who have worked tirelessly for Alan Gross’s release, and for a new approach to advancing our interests and values in Cuba.

World

“In a battle, as in a siege, the art consists in concentrating very heavy fire on a particular point.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
Context: In a battle, as in a siege, the art consists in concentrating very heavy fire on a particular point. The line of battle once established, the one who has the ability to concentrate an unlooked for mass of artillery suddenly and unexpectedly on one of these points is sure to carry the day.

Art

“A reason that Presidents can't just solve things right away is because every leader in every country is gathering and expressing a very particular set of interests and history and institutional arrangements. And those interests oftentimes constrain what a leader can do, even if he or she wants to do it. […] And so what happens”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Town Hall (March 2016)
Context: A reason that Presidents can't just solve things right away is because every leader in every country is gathering and expressing a very particular set of interests and history and institutional arrangements. And those interests oftentimes constrain what a leader can do, even if he or she wants to do it. […] And so what happens is, is that most politicians are constantly making decisions based on what they're hearing from their various constituencies. And their constituencies -- they want what they want. They don't want to compromise sometimes. They don't want to understand the nuances of things. And then it turns out that in politics, sometimes making somebody afraid of somebody else or creating an enemy is more successful in stirring up passion than trying to say let's understand this other person or these other people. So there are leaders who I think do a better job of focusing on the common good, and there are other leaders who are very narrowly focused on just how do I stay in power. And ultimately, if you're lucky enough to live in a democracy, then part of making sure that your leaders can act well is the citizens, the constituency, have to also be well-informed and be willing to give him or her the room to do things that may not be convenient for you right now, but may actually be the right thing to do.

History , Country

“It must be remembered that there is no real reason to expect anything in particular from mankind; good and evil are local expedients—or their lack—and not in any sense cosmic truths or laws.”

H.P. Lovecraft book To Quebec and the Stars

"Nietzscheism and Realism" from The Rainbow, Vol. I, No. 1 (October 1921); reprinted in "To Quebec and the Stars", and also in Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 70
Non-Fiction
Context: It must be remembered that there is no real reason to expect anything in particular from mankind; good and evil are local expedients—or their lack—and not in any sense cosmic truths or laws. We call a thing "good" because it promotes certain petty human conditions that we happen to like—whereas it is just as sensible to assume that all humanity is a noxious pest and should be eradicated like rats or gnats for the good of the planet or of the universe. There are no absolute values in the whole blind tragedy of mechanistic nature—nothing is good or bad except as judged from an absurdly limited point of view. The only cosmic reality is mindless, undeviating fate—automatic, unmoral, uncalculating inevitability. As human beings, our only sensible scale of values is one based on lessening the agony of existence. That plan is most deserving of praise which most ably fosters the creation of the objects and conditions best adapted to diminish the pain of living for those most sensitive to its depressing ravages. To expect perfect adjustment and happiness is absurdly unscientific and unphilosophical. We can seek only a more or less trivial mitigation of suffering. I believe in an aristocracy, because I deem it the only agency for the creation of those refinements which make life endurable for the human animal of high organisation.

Truth , Law , Sense , Evil

“You don't like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But don't break it.Don't break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013
Context: So let's work together to make government work better instead of treating it like an enemy or purposely making it work worse. That's not what the founders of this nation envisioned when they gave us the gift of self-government. You don't like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But don't break it. Don't break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building. That's not being faithful to what this country's about.

Change

“We believe … in obedience to, and respect for the judicial department of government. We think its decisions on Constitutional questions, when fully settled, should control, not only the particular cases decided, but the general policy of the country, subject to be disturbed only by amendments of the Constitution as provided in that instrument itself. More than this would be revolution.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Speech on the Dred Scott Decision (1857)
Context: We believe … in obedience to, and respect for the judicial department of government. We think its decisions on Constitutional questions, when fully settled, should control, not only the particular cases decided, but the general policy of the country, subject to be disturbed only by amendments of the Constitution as provided in that instrument itself. More than this would be revolution. But we think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. … If this important decision had been made by the unanimous concurrence of the judges, and without any apparent partisan bias, and in accordance with legal public expectation, and with the steady practice of the departments throughout our history, and had been in no part, based on assumed historical facts which are not really true; or, if wanting in some of these, it had been before the court more than once, and had there been affirmed and re-affirmed through a course of years, it then might be, perhaps would be, factious, nay, even revolutionary, to not acquiesce in it as a precedent.

Question , Thinking , Decision , Country

“If you want to go into government, you shouldn’t just want to be a particular government official. You should want to go into government because you think it can help educate some children, or it can help provide jobs for people who need work.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall (April 2014)
Context: And when I think back to my journey, my past, I think the most important thing for -- and maybe the most important thing for all the young people here -- is to realize that you really can have an impact on the world; you can achieve your dreams. But in order to do so, you have to focus not so much on a title or how much money you’re going to make, you have to focus more on what kind of influence and impact are you going to have on other people’s lives -- what good can you do in the world. Now, that may involve starting a business, but if you want to start a business you should be really excited about the product or the service that you’re making. It shouldn’t just be how much money I can make -- because the business people who I meet who do amazing things, like Bill Gates, who started Microsoft -- they’re usually people who are really interested in what they do and they really think that it can make a difference in people’s lives. If you want to go into government, you shouldn’t just want to be a particular government official. You should want to go into government because you think it can help educate some children, or it can help provide jobs for people who need work. So I think the most important thing for me was when I started thinking more about other people and how I could have an impact in my larger society and community, and wasn’t just thinking about myself. That’s when I think your dreams can really take off -- because if you’re only thinking about you, then your world is small; if you‘re thinking about others, then your world gets bigger.

Children , People , Education , Thinking

“One of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

1790s, Farewell Address (1796)
Context: One of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings, which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those, who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.

“Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)
Context: Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and laws let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor — let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars. While ever a state of feeling such as this shall universally or even very generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom.

Law , Lovers , Country

“To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against that liberty of conscience which is one of the foundations of American life. You are entitled to know whether a man seeking your suffrages is a man of clean and upright life, honorable in all of his dealings with his fellows, and fit by qualification and purpose to do well in the great office for which he is a candidate; but you are not entitled to know matters which lie purely between himself and his Maker.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Letter to Mr. J.C. Martin concerning religion and politics (6 November 1908)
1900s
Context: To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against that liberty of conscience which is one of the foundations of American life. You are entitled to know whether a man seeking your suffrages is a man of clean and upright life, honorable in all of his dealings with his fellows, and fit by qualification and purpose to do well in the great office for which he is a candidate; but you are not entitled to know matters which lie purely between himself and his Maker. If it is proper or legitimate to oppose a man for being a Unitarian, as was John Quincy Adams, for instance, as is the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, at the present moment Chaplain of the Senate, and an American of whose life all good Americans are proud then it would be equally proper to support or oppose a man because of his views on justification by faith, or the method of administering the sacrament, or the gospel of salvation by works. If you once enter on such a career there is absolutely no limit at which you can legitimately stop.

Life , Lie

“God desires us to follow the examples of the saints by absorbing the vital sap of their virtues and turning it into our own life-blood, adapting it to our own individual capacities and particular circumstances.”

Pope John XXIII (1881–1963) 261st Pope of the Catholic Church

Journal of a Soul (1903)
Context: From the saints I must take the substance, not the accidents of their virtues. I am not St. Aloysius, nor must I seek holiness in his particular way, but according to the requirements of my own nature, my own character and the different conditions of my life. I must not be the dry, bloodless reproduction of a model, however perfect. God desires us to follow the examples of the saints by absorbing the vital sap of their virtues and turning it into our own life-blood, adapting it to our own individual capacities and particular circumstances. If St. Aloysius had been as I am, he would have become holy in a different way.

Life , God

“While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in Union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from Union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighbouring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. In this sense it is, that your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

1790s, Farewell Address (1796)

Peace , Hostility , Country , War

“Violence was common in both places, but the violence of the capitalist order seemed inherent in it; whilst the violence of Russia, bad though it was, aimed at a new order based on peace and cooperation and real freedom for the masses. With all her blunders, Soviet Russia had triumphed over enormous difficulties and taken great strides towards this new order. While the rest of the world was in the grip of the depression and going backward in some ways, in the Soviet country a great new world was being built up before our eyes. Russia, following the great Lenin, looked into the future and thought only of what was to be, while other countries lay numbed under the dead hand of the past and spent their energy in preserving the useless relics of a bygone age. In particular, I was impressed by the reports of the great progress made by the backward regions of Central Asia under the Soviet regime. In the balance, therefore, I was all in favour of Russia, and the presence and example of the Soviets was a bright and heartening phenomenon in a dark and dismal world.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)

Peace , Dead , Freedom , Country

“Archaeologically, this period is still blank… There is no special Aryan pottery… no particular Aryan or Indo-Aryan technique is to be identified by the archaeologists even at the close of the second millennium.”

Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi (1907–1966) Indian mathematician

About the Aryan invasions. The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India in Historical Outline by D.D. Kosambi, Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd, Delhi-Bombay-Bangalore-Kanpur, 1975 (first printed 1970). Quoted in Talageri, S. (2000). The Rigveda: A historical analysis. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

“He who can buy bravery is brace, though a coward. As money is not exchanged for anyone specific quality, for any one specific thing, or for any particular human essential power, but for the entire objective world of man and nature, from the standpoint of its possessor it therefore serves to exchange every property for every other, even contradictory, property and object: it is the fraternization of impossibilities. It makes contradictions embrace.”

Karl Marx book Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Source: Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, p. 105, The Marx-Engels Reader

Money , World , Making love , Nature

“It is striking that one of the most consequential representatives of this abstract scientific orientation of the seventeenth century became so personalistic. This is because as a juristic thinker he wanted to grasp the reality of societal life just as much as he, as a philosopher and natural scientist, wanted to grasp the reality of nature. He did not discover that there is a juristic reality and life that need not be reality in the sense of the natural sciences. Mathematical relativism and nominalism also operate concurrently. Often he seemed to be able to construct the unity of the state from any arbitrary given point. But juristic thought in those days had not yet become so overpowered by the natural sciences that he, in the intensity of his scientific approach, should unsuspectingly have overlooked the specific reality of legal life inherent in the legal form. The form that he sought lies in the concrete decision, one that emanates from a particular authority. In the independent meaning of the decision, the subject of the decision has an independent meaning, apart from the question of content. What matters for the reality of legal life is who decides.”

Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) German jurist, political theorist and professor of law

Political Theology (1922), Ch. 2 : The Problem of Sovereignty as the Problem of the Legal Form and of the Decision

Question , Nature , Reality , Mathematics

“To bringing about the scientific renaissance (In India) Sir Jagadish had influentially contributed. Indians are justly proud of the possession of a few men who have gained world-wide reputation in their particular fields of activity, and this pride reacts strongly on public opinion. At the Research Institute a group Indian post-graduate students devote their lives to research. The published Transactions of the Institute show that under the leadership of this eminent Bengali, Indian research is making substantial contribution to scientific knowledge, that in this field there is no fundamental difference between the Western and the Eastern mind, as was assumed when Sir Jagadish began his work.”

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist

By Times after the inauguration of the his research institute on 23rd November 1917.
Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose in Vijayaprasara

World , Making love , Knowledge , Men

“Michael has been the author of a unique chapter in the history of Formula 1 and of Ferrari in particular. It has yet to reach its conclusion and what he has achieved extends over and above the results obtained. He is an exceptional man and will become a legend as a driver.”

Michael Schumacher (1969) German racing driver

Jean Todt, Ferrari team boss, cited in: Planet-F1 (2006) "Todt and Montezemolo hail 'legend' Schumi". on Planet-F1. September 12, 2006 (no longer online)

History

“We went into at least ten supermarkets. The shelves were fully stocked with every goddamn Nestle brand, every paper product—except toilet paper...And this is where you get into some weird territory, where there are some huge shortages of particular goods used and hoarded for propaganda purposes, to create this kind of international humiliation campaign.”

Abby Martin (1984) American journalist

Quoted in Interview with Abby Martin and Michael Prysner on Venezuelan Opposition & attacks on Journalism, Kevin Gosztola https://shadowproof.com/2017/06/11/interview-martin-prysner-venezuelan-opposition-violence/ (11 June 2017)

“Efficient exploitation of “human resources” requires that the structures that refer the others’ actions to the exploiter’s ends must extend beneath the victim’s skin. The exploiter has to bring about the partial disintegration and re(mis)integration of the others’ matter, parts and properties so that as organized systems the exploited are oriented to some degree by habits, skills, schedules, values and tastes to the exploiter’s ends rather than, as they would otherwise be, to ends of their own. In particular, the manipulations which adapt the exploited to a niche in another’s economy must accomplish a great reduction of the victim’s intolerance of coercion.”

Marilyn Frye book The Politics of Reality

Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 60

Parting

“I love mankind …, but I find to my amazement that the more I love mankind as a whole, the less I love man in particular.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Los hermanos Karamazov

Source: The Brothers Karamazov

“Mathematicians have various ways of judging the merits of new theorems and constructions. One very important criterion is esthetic — some developments just “feel” right, fitting, and beautiful. Just as in other venues where beauty or esthetics are discussed, taste plays an important role in this, but I think I am not alone in being especially excited when apparently different fields suddenly meet in a new concept, a new understanding. It is often of the sparks of such encounters that our esthetic enjoyment of mathematics is born.
Another important criterion for according merit to some particular piece of mathematics is the extent to which it can be useful in applications; this is the criterion almost exclusively used by nonmathematicians.”

Ingrid Daubechies (1954) Belgian physicist and mathematician

(1995) Wavelets and Other Phase Space Localization Methods. In: Chatterji, S.D. (ed.). Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians. Birkhäuser, Basel. [10.1007/978-3-0348-9078-6_8]

Thinking , Mathematics , Understanding , Way

“In a battle, as in a siege, the art consists in concentrating very heavy fire on a particular point. The line of battle once established, the one who has the ability to concentrate an unlooked for mass of artillery suddenly and unexpectedly on one of these points is sure to carry the day.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Art

“In general they are intoxicated by the fame of mass culture, a fame which the latter knows how to manipulate; they could just as well get together in clubs for worshipping film stars or for collecting autographs. What is important to them is the sense of belonging as such, identification, without paying particular attention to its content.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Their applause, cued in by a light-signal, is transmitted directly on the popular radio programmes they are permitted to attend. They call themselves 'jitter-bugs', bugs which carry out reflex movements, performers of their own ecstasy. Merely to be carried away by anything at all, to have something of their own, compensates for their impoverished and barren existence. The gesture of adolescence, which raves for this or that on one day with the ever-present possibility of damning it as idiocy on the next, is now socialized.
Perennial fashion — Jazz, as quoted in The Sociology of Rock (1978) by Simon Frith, ISBN 0094602204

Star , Sense

“The statement "I have no choice" is a lie. Be honest with yourself as to why you are choosing to do a particular thing. Then, do it gladly, knowing that you are always getting to do what you want. You can choose. Isn't that power?”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Lie

“To be loved to madness--such was her great desire. Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days. And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Return of the Native

Love , Lovers , Passion , Loneliness

“Don't you notice that there are particular moments when you are naturally inspired to introspection? Work with them gently, for these are the moments when you can go through a powerful experience, and your whole worldview can change quickly.”

Sogyal Rinpoche (1947–2019) Tibetan Dzogchen lama of the Nyingma tradition

Nature , Change

“Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.”

Howard Thurman (1899–1981) American writer

Source: Meditations of the Heart

Peace , Beauty , Joy

“One could describe Design as a plan for arranging elements to accomplish a particular purpose.”

Charles Eames (1907–1978) American designer, half of duo the Eames

In answer of the question: What is your definition of Design?
Design Q & A with Charles Eames, 1972

“Then forget Gabriel. Is there a particular reason you keep biting vampires?"

Will touched the dried blood on his wrists, and smiled. "They don't expect it.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Smile , Forgetting

“Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Women , Men , Truth , Lie

“Social scientists sometimes talk about the concept of "identity". It is the idea that you have a particular vision of the kind of person you are, and you feel awful when you do things that are out of line with that vision.”

Steven D. Levitt (1967) American economist

Source: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Feeling , Idea , Personality

“I feel like an outsider, and I always will feel like one. I've always felt that I wasn't a member of any particular group.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Feeling

“The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life's major mysteries.”

Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) British writer and philosopher

Life , Indifference

“A poem is this:/A nuance of sound/delicately operating/upon a cataract of sense/… the particulars/of a song waking/upon a bed of sound.”

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) American poet

Source: The Collected Poems, Vol. 2: 1939-1962

Sense

“Love is a word. A sound. Its association with a particular feeling is arbitrary, unmeasurable, and ultimately meaningless”

Hugh Laurie book The Gun Seller

Source: The Gun Seller

Love , Feeling

“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Source: The Letters of John and Abigail Adams

Law

“The glory of a good tale is that it is limitless and fluid; a good tale belongs to each reader in its own particular way.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Way

“Age is just a number, not a state of mind or a reason for any type of particular behaviour.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Love, Rosie

Age

“He well knew his mind's natural tendency to be endlessly on a thousand subjects at once, to flit from this to that and to the next thing to no particular purpose--indeed, he called it his "butterfly mind.”

Eric Metaxas (1963) American journalist

Source: Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery

Nature

“I have often thought that the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive.”

William James The Principles of Psychology

To his wife, Alice Gibbons James (1878)
1920s, The Letters of William James (1920)
Source: The Principles of Psychology
Context: I have often thought that the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: "This is the real me!"

Way

“I’ve never heard that the sexual act requires any particular intelligence. From what I’ve observed, many stupid people are easily able to produce children.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Suddenly You

Children , People , Stupidity , Intelligence

“People say children from broken homes have it hard, but the children of charmed marriages have their own particular challenges.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Marriage , Children , People , Home

“Thinking little at all about nothing in particular.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Thinking

“One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding.”

Paulo Freire book Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Source: Pedagogy of the Oppressed

People , World , Education

“Psychopaths [make] the world go around… society [is] an expression of that particular sort of madness… I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?”

Jon Ronson (1967) British journalist, documentary filmmaker, radio presenter and nonfiction author

Source: The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

World , Madness

“Not that he regretted having killed the guy in Stockton. The one who'd been ready to shoot him over the five crumpled dollar bills in his jeans pocket. He was quite happy to have sent that particular home boy to hell.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Dark Visions

Guy , Home , Boy , Hell

“A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it … gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

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

Source: (1962), Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, 2002 edition, page 15

People , Thinking , Freedom

“I felt in love, not with anything or anybody in particular but with everything.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

of first taking LSD, The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 177

Love

“Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgement. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is “Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying,” but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Author’s Note (pp. 276-277)
A Scanner Darkly (1977)

Life , People , Disease , Cars

“You promised me I could measure your… particular abilities."
"Promised?" Kaladin asked. "I don't remember a promise."
"You grunted”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

“It may well be impossible for people who have lived and prospered under a given social system to imagine the point of view of those who feel it offers them nothing, and who can contemplate its destruction without any particular dismay.”

Michel Houellebecq (1956) writer

Source: Submission

People , Feeling , Imagination

“Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it…”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

The World (15 November 1893)
1890s

World , Country , Funny

“Come with me into the woods where spring is
advancing, as it does, no matter what,
not being singular or particular, but one
of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: Dog Songs

Spring

“I am here; and here is nowhere in particular.”

William Golding book The Spire

Source: The Spire

“Apparently I lack some particular perversion which today's employer is seeking.”

John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces

Source: A Confederacy of Dunces

“18th century scientists, the French in particular, seldom did things simply if an absurdly demanding alternative was available.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

“Randall laid his hand on Stella's, but only to remove it from his sleeve. "My precious, you really must have some regard for my clothes," he said with gentle reproach. "Much as I love you, I cannot permit you to maul this particular coat.”

Georgette Heyer (1902–1974) British historical romance and detective fiction novelist

Source: Behold, Here's Poison

Love , Clothes

“Jessamine flushed. "Ugh! Charlotte, Will's being vexing."
"And the sun has come up in the east," said Jem to no one in particular.
…
"And the sun comes up in the WEST," said Will, who had apparently heard Jem's earlier comment.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Sun

“When God closes a door, he opens a window. Yeah. The problem was that this particular window opened off the tenth story, and he wasn't so sure God supplied parachutes.”

Diana Gabaldon (1952) American author

Source: An Echo in the Bone

God , Problem

“We do not wait for inspiration. We work because we've jolly well got to. But when all is said and done, we toil at this particular job because it's turned out to be our particular job, and in a weird sort of way I suppose we may be said to like it.”

Ngaio Marsh (1895–1982) New Zealand writer

Source: Ngaio Marsh: A Life

Way , Waiting

“A man who has nothing in particular to recommend him discusses all sorts of subjects at random as though he knew everything.”

Sei Shonagon book The Pillow Book

Source: The Pillow Book
Source: The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon (1002), p. 44

“The letter I received said you had need of my particular talents, but I must confess that I have so many talents that I am not sure which one you require.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What Really Happened in Peru

“Charlotte, Will’s being
vexing.'
'And the sun has come up in the east,'
said Jem, to no one in particular.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Sun

“There was no particular point at which I stopped being promising.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“One day I looked at Gat, lying in the Clairmont hammock with a book, and he seemed, well, like he was mine. Like he was my particular person.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Books , Lying , Personality

“Feeling this way was a particular kind of horror, having the emotions without the memories.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy

Way , Feeling , Memory

“What I needed with all my starved and silent soul was just that particular way of shouting back at the world.”

Iris Murdoch book The Sea, the Sea

Source: The Sea, the Sea

World , Way , Soul

“Yet once you've come to be part of this particular patch, you'll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.”

Nelson Algren (1909–1981) American novelist, short story writer

Source: Chicago: City on the Make (1951), Chapter 2, ""Are you a Christian?""
Context: [About Chicago:] It's every man for himself in this hired air. / Yet once you've come to be part of this particular patch, you'll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.

Love , Parting

“We need creativity in order to break free from the temporary structures that have been set up by a particular sequence of experience.”

Edward de Bono (1933) Maltese physician

“The purpose of dancing isn't to end up at a particular spot on the floor. The purpose of dancing and of life is to enjoy every moment and every step, regardless of where you are when the music ends.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Life , Music , Dance

“They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

People

“Giordino… simply sighed in resignation. "Who else," he asked no one in particular, "but Dirk Pitt could tramp off into a blizzard on an uninhabited backwater island in the Antarctic and discover a beautiful girl?”

Clive Cussler Shock Wave

Source: Shock Wave

Beauty , Girl

“Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let’s not forget this.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

Books , Way , Time , Forgetting

“In heaven an angel is no one in particular.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Angels

“I stood on Susan Boone's front porch, feeling lame. But then, since I've pretty much felt lame my entire life, this was no big surprise. On the other hand, usually I felt lame for no particular reason. This time I really had a reason to feel lame.”

Meg Cabot book All American Girl

Source: All-American Girl

Life , Feeling , Time

“As our options expand, so do our desires - and unmet desires in particular.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Fourth Comings

“A woman had to choose her own particular unhappiness carefully. That was the only happiness in life: to choose the best unhappiness. An unwise move, good God, you could squander everything.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

Source: Bark: Stories

Life , God , Happiness

“Loki, that's me. Loki, the Light-Bringer, the misunderstood, the elusive, the handsome and modest hero of this particular tissue of lies.”

Joanne Harris book The Gospel of Loki

Source: The Gospel of Loki

Light

“Every artist is linked to a mistake with which he has a particular intimacy. All art draws its origin from an exceptional fault, each work is the implementation of this original fault, from which comes a risky plenitude and new light.”

Maurice Blanchot (1907–2003) French writer, philosopher, and literary theorist

Art , Light , Drawing

“A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot."

[(, Vol. 33 No. 15, 28 July 2011)]”

Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author

Shoe , Personality , Clothes

“I looked at myself in that window, oblivious to all the people around me and I stared and smiled that particular smile. You know that smile that seems to knock you and tell you how pathetic you are? That's the smile I was smiling.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: Underdog

People , Smile

“One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you've failed at everything else.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“Live all you can — it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had?”

Henry James book The Ambassadors

Source: The Ambassadors (1903), book V, ch. II.
Context: Live all you can — it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had?.. What one loses one loses; make no mistake about that... The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.. Live!

Life

“In the deepest sense, the being in a state of sin is the sin, the particular sins are not the continuation of sin, they are expressions of its continuation.”

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

Source: The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening

Sense

“In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate - look to his character.”

Noah Webster (1758–1843) lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, writer, editor and author

Men

“Besides, when I look around me at the men, I feel that God never meant us women to be too particular.”

Marie Jenney Howe (1870–1934) American writer

Source: An Anti-Suffrage Monologue

Women , Men , God , Feeling

“Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

Source: According to the Rolling Stones

Music

“According to the Bible, God created the heavens and the Earth. It is man’s prerogative - and woman’s - to create their own particular and private hell.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Source: The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories

God , Hell

“At this particular moment, there’s just no question about it.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

How They Met, and Other Stories

Question

“It's not that I don't know that it's a bad idea. It's that, lately, bad ideas have a particular hold over me.”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

Idea

“How could I be sleeping with this particular man…. Surely only true love could justify my lack of taste.”

Margaret Atwood book Lady Oracle

Source: Lady Oracle

Love , Sleep

“"Wait a second."
"I never understand why people say that," Luke said, to no one in particular. "I wasn't going anywhere."”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Clary and Luke, pg. 407
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

People , Understanding , Waiting

“Jessamine flushed. "I do. I mean, I did not. I mean--ugh! Charlotte, Will's being vexing."
"And the sun has come up in the east," said Jem, to no one in particular.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Sun

“When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe”

Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) Martiniquais writer, psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary

“The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

"A Book That Influenced Me"
Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)

Books

“An individual has not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow horizons of his particular individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. And this is one of the big problems of life, that so many people never quite get to the point of rising above self. And so they end up the tragic victims of self-centeredness. They end up the victims of distorted and disrupted personality.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Variants (Many of MLKs' speeches were delivered many times with slight variants): An Individual has not started living fully until they can rise above the narrow confines of individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of humanity. Every person must decide at some point, whether they will walk in light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment: Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'What are you doing for others?'
As quoted in The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Coretta Scott King, Second Edition (2011), Ch. "Community of Man", p. 3
1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)

Life , People , Problem , Personality