Quotes about performance (1726 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“I really love to skate, I really love to perform. I want to skate for my fans. I never feel like a champion. I'm always a challenger.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

CBC interview with Scott Russell

Feeling , Love

“A lot of people said to me that they were able to feel courage or happiness, for instance, when they see my performance. So, I believe that this is my motivation for skating, and that this gives me the reason to go on until the end.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

CBC interview with Scott Russell
Original: (ja) いろんな方々が僕の演技を見た時に勇気を感じたとか、何か幸せになったとか、そういったことを言ってくれて、それが自分にとってのスケートのモチベーションだと思ってますし、それが僕が今スケートを最後までやり通す意味になってるなって思います。

Happiness , People , Motivation , Courage

“Sometimes I can't explain or speak with words. It really feels a little frustrating. But in skating I can use all languages, for all the people. I can do a part of the performance for every country, every people.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Other quotes, 2019
Source: Interview after the freeskate at Skate Canada 2019, as transcribed by the International Skating Union, published on 28 October 2019 on their official YouTube-Channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2guVNCyGL1M.

People , Country , Feeling , Parting

“She helped me feel like I could take risks with the music, which you’re often told not to do. When you watch her, you see that it makes a difference. From now on, I am not going to be afraid to individualize my performances to the max. I won’t be afraid of liberties, if the score permits them. I know I can do it.”

Megan Marie Hart (1983) American opera singer

on Marilyn Horne's influence; 2005, as quoted by Zachary Lewis https://solokeyboard.typepad.com/Music2005Final.doc and edited into the Oberlin Review article The Marilyn Horne Experience http://www2.oberlin.edu/con/connews/2006/of_note.html#3

Music , Help , Making love , Feeling

“I'm not performing miracles, I'm using up and wasting a lot of paint…”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Painting

“The speedily changing world and the growth in business and industrial enterprises have led to greater demand of semi-skilled manpower, who need a higher level of education in order to perform their tasks at the adequate level. To keep up with the speedy change, the educational system can no longer take a passive role.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

Education helps reduce social problems and improves quality of life

World , Education , Business , Change

“Can you imagine how terrible it is when you've got everything and you're still desperately lonely? That is awful beyond words.
I'm so powerful on stage that I seem to have created a monster. When I'm performing I'm an extrovert, yet inside I'm a completely different man.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

As quoted in "Rock On Freddie" (1985).

Imagination

“Edison was by far the most successful and, probably, the last exponent of the purely empirical method of investigation. Everything he achieved was the result of persistent trials and experiments often performed at random but always attesting extraordinary vigor and resource. Starting from a few known elements, he would make their combinations and permutations, tabulate them and run through the whole list, completing test after test with incredible rapidity until he obtained a clue. His mind was dominated by one idea, to leave no stone unturned, to exhaust every possibility.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Idea , Success

“To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the visual arts exhilarates, the performing arts (such as acting and dance) entertain. Literature, however, retreats from life by turning in into slumber. The other arts make no such retreat— some because they use visible and hence vital formulas, others because they live from human life itself.
This isn't the case with literature. Literature simulates life. A novel is a story of what never was, a play is a novel without narration. A poem is the expression of ideas or feelings a language no one uses, because no one talks in verse.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Life , Art , Music , Way

“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VI, 6
Variant: The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI

Revenge

“I thought that the only action a man could perform without shame was to take his life; that he had no right to diminish himself in the succession of days and the inertic of misery. No elect, I kept telling myself, but those who committed suicide.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

Life , Suicide , Success

“Just as the various trades are most highly developed in large cities, in the same way food at the palace is prepared in a far superior manner. In small towns the same man makes couches, doors, plows and tables, and often he even builds houses, and still he is thankful if only he can find enough work to support himself. And it is impossible for a man of many trades to do all of them well. In large cities, however, because many make demands on each trade, one alone is enough to support a man, and often less than one: for instance one man makes shoes for men, another for women, there are places even where one man earns a living just by mending shoes, another by cutting them out, another just by sewing the uppers together, while there is another who performs none of these operations but assembles the parts, Of necessity, he who pursues a very specialised task will do it best.”

Xenophon book Cyropaedia

Cyropaedia, 4th Century BC

Women , Men , Food , Shoe

“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote of Vincent's letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 3 April 1878; a cited in The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to his Brother, 1872-1886 (1927) Constable & Co
Variant: Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.
As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 483
1870s
Context: If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true, that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done.

Love

“Reverence the highest, have patience with the lowest. Let this day's performance of the meanest duty be thy religion. Are the stars too distant, pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, and from it learn the all.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Religion , Star , Learning , Distant

“There is small risk a general will be regarded with contempt by those he leads, if, whatever he may have to preach, he shows himself best able to perform.”

Xenophon (-430–-354 BC) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

The Cavalry General, ch. 6, as translated by Henry Graham Dakyns in The Cavalry General (2004) p. 26.

“Music is so important to us. We hear music from the moment we are born, often via lullabies, and through many of the most important occasions in our lives, from graduations to weddings to funerals. There is something about music that seems to bring us closer to each other and help us come together as a community.
Humans are wired for music. Researchers recently discovered that we have a dedicated part of our brain for processing music, supporting the theory that it has a special, important function in our lives.
Listening to music and singing together has been shown in several studies to directly impact neuro-chemicals in the brain, many of which play a role in closeness and connection. Now new research suggests that playing music or singing together may be particularly potent in bringing about social closeness through the release of endorphins.
Through singing, drumming, and dancing—all resulted in participants having higher pain thresholds (a proxy measure for increased endorphin release in the brain) in comparison to listening to music alone. In addition, the performance of music resulted in greater positive emotion, suggesting one pathway through which people feel closer to one another when playing music together is through endorphin release.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Pain , People , Music , Feeling

“That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Love , Hate , People , Sadness

“A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Knowledge

“You almost create this infinite universe for the character that you’re playing and then you’re compromising it into the story that you’re doing. Whatever character you’re playing, you kind of explore endlessly more than what’s on the page. You use that exploration to do the performance that’s in the film, but hopefully, people will see all that work and preparation in those little glimpses of scenes and moments. Oh, there’s something there. There’s so much more happening with this character.”

Bill Skarsgård (1990) Swedish actor

Bill Skarsgard on ‘IT’ and Tapping into His Fears to Create a Terrifying New Pennywise http://collider.com/bill-skarsgard-pennywise-it-movie-interview/#images (July 28, 2017)

People , Universe

“The two party electoral system performs the essential function of helping to legitimate the existing social order.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 11, p. 179

Help

“A member of the human race who is completely incapable of understanding the higher productivity of labor performed under a division of labor based on private property is not properly speaking a person… but falls instead into the same moral category as an animal – of either the harmless sort (to be domesticated and employed as a producer or consumer good, or to be enjoyed as a “free good”) or the wild and dangerous one (to be fought as a pest). On the other hand, there are members of the human species who are capable of understanding the [value of the division of labor] but…who knowingly act wrongly… [B]esides having to be tamed or even physically defeated [they] must also be punished… to make them understand the nature of their wrongdoings and hopefully teach them a lesson for the future.”

Hans-Hermann Hoppe book Democracy: The God That Failed

Source: Democracy: The God That Failed (2001), P.173

Understanding , Nature , Future , Animals

“A manager of people needs to understand that all people are different. This is not ranking people. He needs to understand that the performance of anyone is governed largely by the system that he works in, the responsibility of management.”

W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) American professor, author, and consultant

The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993)

People , Understanding

“Even those who raised the dead could not save themselves from death either. Death is guaranteed to all, including those who perform miracles.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Dead , Death

“I wouldn’t say it’s an alter ego, but I have anxiety around social situations, and I don’t like going to parties…As a performer, onstage I know my place. I’m sure of myself. There’s no doubt. It’s just existing, and it’s so lovely to get to be for an hour.”

Mitski (1990) Japanese-American singer-songwriter

Laurel Hell
Source: On how her personal life differs from her onstage persona in Mitski Had to Quit Music to Love It” https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/mitski-new-album-laurel-hell-cover-story-1272973/ in Rolling Stone (2021 Dec 27)

Love

“We are the pilots of our life, we only know how to manage life. But from time to time, the fog prevents us from performing incredible tricks.”

Nikita Vasilyevich Smirnov (28)

Time , Life

“Music is so important to us. We hear music from the moment we are born, often via lullabies, and through many of the most important occasions in our lives, from graduations to weddings to funerals. There is something about music that seems to bring us closer to each other and help us come together as a community.
Humans are wired for music. Researchers recently discovered that we have a dedicated part of our brain for processing music, supporting the theory that it has a special, important function in our lives.
Listening to music and singing together has been shown in several studies to directly impact neuro-chemicals in the brain, many of which play a role in closeness and connection. Now new research suggests that playing music or singing together may be particularly potent in bringing about social closeness through the release of endorphins.
Through singing, drumming, and dancing—all resulted in participants having higher pain thresholds (a proxy measure for increased endorphin release in the brain) in comparison to listening to music alone. In addition, the performance of music resulted in greater positive emotion, suggesting one pathway through which people feel closer to one another when playing music together is through endorphin release.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Pain , People , Music , Feeling

“You can´t just tell people what to do and then expect them to perform well.”

Mike Krzyzewski (1947) American basketball player and coach

People

“Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Faith

“Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Life , Art , Happiness

“Whoever loves much, performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Inspirational , Love

“The only performance that makes it, that makes it all the way is the one that achieves madness.”

Mick Jagger (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

Way , Madness

“For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good which he performs, but for the evil which he forbears.”

Walter Scott book Ivanhoe

Source: Ivanhoe (1819), Ch. 33, The Black Knight speaking to Locksley.

Evil

“The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

Quote from The Writings of Marcel Duchamp (Marchand du Sel) e.d. Michel Sanouille and Elmer Peterson, New York 1973, pp. 139-140
posthumous
Context: The spectator experiences the phenomenon of transmutation; through the change from inert matter into a work of art, an actual transubstantiation has taken place... All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work into contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.

World

“it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Source: Macbeth

“I was not intrigued with the accouterments of success and fame, the furs, jewels, expensive automobiles and mansions… I can assure you that these things were not on my mind when I sat spellbound in that Pozzuoli movie house. It was what these performers on the screen were doing, not what they received for doing it.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

As quoted in Sophia, Living and Loving: Her Own Story (1979) by A. E. Hotchner, p. 63.

Success , Housing

“Dear rulers … I maintain that the civil authorities are under obligation to compel the people to send their children to school. … If the government can compel such citizens as are fit for military service to bear spear and rifle, to mount ramparts, and perform other martial duties in time of war, how much more has it a right to compel the people to send their children to school, because in this case we are warring with the devil, whose object it is secretly to exhaust our cities and principalities of their strong men.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

letter to the German rulers (1524), as quoted in The History of Compulsory Education in New England, John William Perrin, 1896

Men , War , Children , People

“I write music, it's performed. It can be heard, and whoever wants to hear it will. After all, my music says it all. It doesn't need historical and hysterical commentaries. In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.”

Dmitri Shostakovich book Testimony

Page 196
Testimony (1979)

Music

“WOKING (vb.) To enter the kitchen with the precise determination to perform something only to forget what it is just before you do it.”

Douglas Adams book The Meaning of Liff

The Meaning of Liff (1983)

Forgetting

“If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Harvard University address (1978)

Life , Money , World , Way

“… the best way to win was to not need to win. The best performances are accomplished when you are relaxed and free of doubt.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 31.

Way

“The seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.”

Alhazen (965–1038) Arab physicist, mathematician and astronomer

Alhazen, quoted in “Muslim Journeys.” Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2013. Also in Ibn al-Haytham Brief life of an Arab mathematician: died circa 1040 (September-October 2003) http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/09/ibn-al-haytham-html

Truth , Faith , Question , Nature

“God is the solitude of men. There was only me: I alone decided to commit Evil; alone, I invented Good. I am the one who cheated, I am the one who performed miracles, I am the one accusing myself today, I alone can absolve myself; me, the man.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 10, sc. 4
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

Men , God , Solitude , Evil

“I enjoy challenging a person's ideas. No one loves a good and passionately fought argument more than I do. This isn't about being tough-minded and straightforward. That's the job. But so is sensing when to hug and when to kick. Of course, arrogant people who refuse to learn from their mistakes have to go. If we're managing good people who are clearly eating themselves up over an error, our job is to help them through it. That doesn't mean you have to take it easy on your top performers.”

Jack Welch (1935) American executive: General Electric CEO

Source: Jack: Straight from the Gut (2001), Ch. 3.

Love , People , Error , Idea

“While the others had got married and moved out to suburbia, I had stayed in London and got into the arts scene through friends like Robert Fraser and Barry Miles and papers like The International Times. We opened the Indica gallery with John Dunbar, Peter Asher and people like that. I heard about people like John Cage, and that he’d just performed a piece of music called 4’33” (which is completely silent) during which if someone in the audience coughed he would say, ‘See?’ Or someone would boo and he’d say, ‘See? It’s not silence—it’s music.’ I was intrigued by all of that. So these things started to be part of my life. I was listening to Stockhausen; one piece was all little plink-plonks and interesting ideas. Perhaps our audience wouldn’t mind a bit of change, we thought, and anyway, tough if they do! We only ever followed our own noses—most of the time, anyway. ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was one example of developing an idea.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 212

Life , People , Art , Music

“My favorite thing is being able to travel around the world and perform for my fans. I think I’ve lost 80 percent of my hearing. I definitely have very loud fans.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Vibe "Justin Bieber on Photo Shoots, Puberty, 2Pac & Drake" http://www.vibe.com/article/justin-bieber-photo-shoots-puberty-2pac-drake, 22 July 2010

World , Travel , Thinking

“[Belafonte]'d take me to perform for Martin Luther King's cause. But when they were marching I did not take part, because I was not a citizen”

Miriam Makeba (1932–2008) South African singer and civil rights activist

Interview with Robin Denselow (May 2008)
Source: Denselow, Robin, http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2280144,00.html, Robin Denselow talks to African superstar and activist Miriam Makeba, The Guardian, 15, London, 16 May 2008, 18 November 201

Parting

“This mental activity, at first involuntary under the pressure of illness and suffering, gradually became second nature and led me finally to recognize that I was but an automaton devoid of free will in thought and action and merely responsible to the forces of the environment. Our bodies are of such complexity of structure, the motions we perform are so numerous and involved and the external impressions on our sense organs to such a degree delicate and elusive, that it is hard for the average person to grasp this fact. Yet nothing is more convincing to the trained investigator than the mechanistic theory of life which had been, in a measure, understood and propounded by Descartes three hundred years ago.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)

Life , Nature , Sense , Suffering

“Although you perform many works, if you do not deny your will and submit yourself, losing all solicitude about yourself and your affairs, you will not make progress.”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

The Sayings of Light and Love

“Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. The sound of a truck at fifty miles per hour. Static between the stations. Rain. We want to capture and control these sounds, to use them not as sound effects but as musical instruments. Every film studio has a library of "sound effects" recorded on film. With a film phonograph it is now possible to control the amplitude and frequency of any one of these sounds and to give to it rhythms within or beyond the reach of the imagination. Given four film phonographs, we can compose and perform a quartet for explosive motor, wind, heartbeat, and landslide.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Quote of John Cage, in: 'The Future of Music: Credo' (1937); in: 'Silence: lectures and writings by Cage, John', Publisher Middletown, Conn. Wesleyan University Press, June 1961, V.
1930s

Music , Imagination

“The man who, through his own efforts, is able to perform all the actions necessary for his comfort and development in life, conquers himself, and in doing so multiplies his abilities and perfects himself as an individual.
We must make of the future generation, powerful men, and by that we mean men who are independent and free.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Source: The Montessori Method (1912), Ch. 5 : Discipline, p. 100.
Context: Let us picture to ourselves a clever and proficient workman, capable, not only of producing much and perfect work, but of giving advice in his workshop, because of his ability to control and direct the general activity of the environment in which he works. The man who is thus master of his environment will be able to smile before the anger of others, showing that great mastery of himself which comes from consciousness of his ability to do things. We should not, however, be in the least surprised to know that in his home this capable workman scolded his wife if the soup was not to his taste, or not ready at the appointed time. In his home, he is no longer the capable workman; the skilled workman here is the wife, who serves him and prepares his food for him. He is a serene and pleasant man where he is powerful through being efficient, but is domineering where he is served. Perhaps if he should learn how to prepare his soup he might become a perfect man! The man who, through his own efforts, is able to perform all the actions necessary for his comfort and development in life, conquers himself, and in doing so multiplies his abilities and perfects himself as an individual.
We must make of the future generation, powerful men, and by that we mean men who are independent and free.

Life , Men , Effort , Future

“Man is not, as the croaking philosophers say, merely a rational animal, capable of understanding and knowledge; for, according to them, even irrational creatures appear possessed of understanding and knowledge. But man alone is the image and likeness of God ; and I mean by man, not one who performs actions similar to those of animals, but one who has advanced far beyond mere humanity — to God Himself. This question we have discussed more minutely in the treatise concerning animals. But the principal point to be spoken of now is, what is intended by the image and likeness of God.”

Tatian (120–180) Syrian writer

Ante-Nicene Christian library: v. 3 p. 20
Address to the Greeks

God , Understanding , Question , Knowledge

“Jay Z: We are good friends, but what I got to say has nothing to do with our friendship. I have been in the industry long enough to know when I’m in the presence of a genius… and Chris Martin is just that. In years to come, Britain will look back at him as a modern day Shakespeare, he is an incredible recording artist, an incredible songwriter, but where he really comes alive is performing live. If you get the chance to see Coldplay live, do it, you ain’t gonna regret it.”

Chris Martin (1977) musician, co-founder of Coldplay

http://www.metroguiltypleasures.com/metro/coldplays-chris-martin-is-a-modern-day-shakespeare-says-jay-z/ source

Chance , Friendship

“The most sensitive musical instrument is the human soul. The next is the human voice. One must purify the soul until it begins to sound. A composer is a musical instrument and at the same time, a performer on that instrument. The instrument has to be in order to produce sound. One must start with that, not with the music. Through the music the composer can check whether his instrument is tuned and to what key it is tuned.”

Arvo Pärt (1935) Estonian composer

Read from his musical diaries while speaking at St. Vladimir’s Seminary https://vimeo.com/221011528/

Music , Soul , Time

“Creativity needs the support of knowledge to be able to perform at its best.”

Massimo Vignelli (1931–2014) Italian designer

Support , Knowledge

“The boy reached through to the Soul of the World, and saw that it was part of the Soul of God. And he saw that the Soul of God was his own soul. And that he, a boy, could perform miracles.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

God , World , Soul , Boy

“You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

Way

“And what? Accidentally cuts off three fingers postmortem? 'Oops, oh, no, my girlfriend just died! Clumsy me, in trying to perform CPR, I chopped off some fingers! Guess I'll just take them with me…. Oh, darn, where did that middle finger go?”

Barry Lyga (1971) American writer

Source: I Hunt Killers

“Life' wrote a friend of mine, 'is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View

Life , Learning

“The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America

Health

“You become most powerful in whatever you do if the action is performed for its own sake rather than as a means to protect, enhance, or conform to your role identity.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Everything's about my personal entertainment. The world is my stage. Keep it up- you're becoming a star performer in the show.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

World , Star , Personality

“There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Heartbreaking , Powerful , Loss , Time

“In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Love , Feeling

“We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”

Brother Lawrence book The Practice of the Presence of God

Source: The Practice of the Presence of God

Love , God

“All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us.”

Eugene H. Peterson (1932–2018) American translator

God , Faith , Personality

“The supreme misfortune is when theory outstrips performance”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

“You say 'I' and you are proud of this word. But greater than this- although you will not believe in it - is your body and its great intelligence, which does not say 'I' but performs 'I'.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Intelligence

“When I was a boy a farmer's wife who lived five miles from our village had great fame as a faith-doctor—that was what she called herself. Sufferers came to her from all around, and she laid her hand upon them and said, "Have faith—it is all that is necessary," and they went away well of their ailments. She was not a religious woman, and pretended to no occult powers. She said that the patient's faith in her did the work. Several times I saw her make immediate cures of severe toothaches. My mother was the patient. In Austria there is a peasant who drives a great trade in this sort of industry, and has both the high and the low for patients. He gets into prison every now and then for practising without a diploma, but his business is as brisk as ever when he gets out, for his work is unquestionably successful and keeps his reputation high. In Bavaria there is a man who performed so many great cures that he had to retire from his profession of stage-carpentering in order to meet the demand of his constantly increasing body of customers. He goes on from year to year doing his miracles, and has become very rich. He pretends to no religious helps, no supernatural aids, but thinks there is something in his make-up which inspires the confidence of his patients, and that it is this confidence which does the work, and not some mysterious power issuing from himself.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Source: Christian Science (1907), Ch. 4

Faith , Confidence , Boy , Business

“In our society, defecation involves an individual in activity which is defined as inconsistent with the cleanliness and purity standards expressed in many of our performances. Such activity also causes the individual to disarrange his clothing and to 'go out of play," that is, to drop from his face the expressive mask that he employs in face-to-face interaction. At the same time it becomes difficult for him to reassemble his personal front should the need to enter into interaction suddenly occur. Perhaps that is a reason why toilet doors in our society have locks on them.”

Erving Goffman book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

Source: 1950s-1960s, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 1959, p. 121 (1973 edition)

Time , Personality , Clothes

“The story of how anti-Hindu laws were enacted… is long. In summary form, it consists of 1) banishing Brahmins on pain of being made prisoners on the galleys; 2) confiscating the properties of those Hindus who sent their families to neighbouring lands for fear of conversion; 3) prohibiting the performance of Hindu rites and ceremonies; 4) banning Hindu priests and preachers from doing their religious duties; 5) compelling Hindus to attend church services and listen to Christian doctrines; 6) depriving Hindus of their traditional rights and privileges in village communities; 7) forcing the baptism of Hindu orphans; and 8) ordering Hindus not to ride on horseback or in palanquins. The laws were so designed as to humiliate the Hindus in every conceivable manner… Missionary records, however, refer to many famous Hindu temples being converted into churches at these places… Even private temples in Hindu homes were prohibited and “transgressors” were severely punished…”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

St. Francis Xavier: The man and his mission. 1985.

Pain , Fear , Family , Law

“The systems approach to problems focuses on systems taken as a whole, not on their parts taken separately. Such an approach is concerned with total- system performance even when a change in only one or a few of its parts is contemplated because there are some properties of systems that can only be treated adequately from a holistic point of view. These properties derive from the relationship between parts of systems: how the parts interact and fit together”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Cited in: Haluk Demirkan, James C. Spohrer, Vikas Krishna (2011) The Science of Service Systems. p. 274.
1970s, Towards a System of Systems Concepts, 1971

Problem , Change , Parting

“Eating, bathing, going to the toilet, talking, thinking, and many other activities related to the body are all work. How is it that the performance of one particular act is alone (considered) work? To be still is to be always engaged in work. To be silent is to be always talking.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Abide as the Self

Thinking

“Be brave! Let's remember our duty and perform it without complaint. There will be a way out. God has never deserted our people. Through the ages Jews have had to suffer, but through the ages they've gone on living, and the centuries of suffering have only made them stronger. The weak shall fall and the strong shall survive and not be defeated!”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

11 April 1944
(1942 - 1944)

God , People , Age , Way

“Our virtues themselves are not free and floating qualities over which we retain a permanent control and power of disposal; they come to be so closely linked in our minds with the actions in conjunction with which we make it our duty to practice them, that, if we are suddenly called upon to perform some action of a different order, it takes us by surprise, and without our supposing for a moment that it might involve the bringing of those very same virtues into play.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol II: Within a Budding Grove (1919)

“A person shall arrive on the Day of Judgement and shall be in possession of good deeds in the measure of vastly accumulated clouds or towering mountains. (Witnessing them) he shall ask: ‘Oh My Lord! How can these be for me when I have not performed them?’ God shall reply: ‘This is your knowledge that you had taught and conveyed to the people, and which was acted upon after you had died.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Biharul Anwar, Volume 2, Page 18
Shi'ite Hadith

God , People , Mountain , Knowledge

“So we find that the three possible solutions of the great problem of increasing human energy are answered by the three words: food, peace, work. Many a year I have thought and pondered, lost myself in speculations and theories, considering man as a mass moved by a force, viewing his inexplicable movement in the light of a mechanical one, and applying the simple principles of mechanics to the analysis of the same until I arrived at these solutions, only to realize that they were taught to me in my early childhood. These three words sound the key-notes of the Christian religion. Their scientific meaning and purpose now clear to me: food to increase the mass, peace to diminish the retarding force, and work to increase the force accelerating human movement. These are the only three solutions which are possible of that great problem, and all of them have one object, one end, namely, to increase human energy. When we recognize this, we cannot help wondering how profoundly wise and scientific and how immensely practical the Christian religion is, and in what a marked contrast it stands in this respect to other religions. It is unmistakably the result of practical experiment and scientific observation which have extended through the ages, while other religions seem to be the outcome of merely abstract reasoning. Work, untiring effort, useful and accumulative, with periods of rest and recuperation aiming at higher efficiency, is its chief and ever-recurring command. Thus we are inspired both by Christianity and Science to do our utmost toward increasing the performance of mankind. This most important of human problems I shall now specifically consider.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Age , Peace , Religion , Food

“With kings, nations, and private individuals, the strongest assume to themselves rights over the weakest, and the same rule is followed by animals, by matter, by the elements, so that everything is performed in the universe by violence. And that order which we blame with some appearance of justice is the most universal, most absolute, most unchangeable, and most ancient law of nature.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 176.

Justice , Law , Nature , Universe

“I want to perform an unnatural act.
in”

Lenny Bruce (1925–1966) comedian and social critic

Lenny as the Lone Ranger, in Thank You Mask Man' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121802/

“Soldiers — You are about to return to your homes and your friends, after having, as I learn, performed in camp a comparatively short term of duty in this great contest. I am greatly obliged to you, and to all who have come forward at the call of their country.”

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

1860s, Speeches to Ohio Regiments (1864), Speech to the One Hundred Sixty-fourth Ohio Regiment

Home , Learning , Country

“As long as psychotherapy concerns itself with the relief of psychic distress, avoiding the larger questions which arise from involvement with the creative process, it can perform its medical healing function without doing major violence to the social assets which creativity supplies.”

Paul Rosenfels (1909–1985) American sociologist

8. Psychotherapy and Social Welfare
Love and Power: The Psychology of Interpersonal Creativity (1966)

Question

“The Competent Manager: A Model for Effective Performance offers an empirical, total system approach that determines which characteristics of managers enable them to be effective in various management jobs.”

Richard Boyatzis (1946) American business theorist

Introduction text.
Competent manager (1982)

“The foreign-born population of this country must be an Americanized population. No other kind can fight the battles of America either in war or peace. It must talk the language of its native-born fellow-citizens; it must possess American citizenship and American ideals. It must stand firm by its oath of allegiance in word and deed and must show that in very fact it has renounced allegiance to every prince, potentate, or foreign government. It must be maintained on an American standard of living so as to prevent labor disturbances in important plants and at critical times. None of these objects can be secured as long as we have immigrant colonies, ghettos, and immigrant sections, and above all they cannot be assured so long as we consider the immigrant only as an industrial asset. The immigrant must not be allowed to drift or to be put at the mercy of the exploiter. Our object is not to imitate one of the older racial types, but to maintain a new American type and then to secure loyalty to this type. We cannot secure such loyalty unless we make this a country where men shall feel that they have justice and also where they shall feel that they are required to perform the duties imposed upon them.”

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

1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: The foreign-born population of this country must be an Americanized population. No other kind can fight the battles of America either in war or peace. It must talk the language of its native-born fellow-citizens; it must possess American citizenship and American ideals. It must stand firm by its oath of allegiance in word and deed and must show that in very fact it has renounced allegiance to every prince, potentate, or foreign government. It must be maintained on an American standard of living so as to prevent labor disturbances in important plants and at critical times. None of these objects can be secured as long as we have immigrant colonies, ghettos, and immigrant sections, and above all they cannot be assured so long as we consider the immigrant only as an industrial asset. The immigrant must not be allowed to drift or to be put at the mercy of the exploiter. Our object is not to imitate one of the older racial types, but to maintain a new American type and then to secure loyalty to this type. We cannot secure such loyalty unless we make this a country where men shall feel that they have justice and also where they shall feel that they are required to perform the duties imposed upon them. The policy of 'Let alone' which we have hitherto pursued is thoroughly vicious from two standpoints. By this policy we have permitted the immigrants, and too often the native-born laborers as well, to suffer injustice. Moreover, by this policy we have failed to impress upon the immigrant and upon the native-born as well that they are expected to do justice as well as to receive justice, that they are expected to be heartily and actively and single-mindedly loyal to the flag no less than to benefit by living under it.

Men , War , Peace , Justice

“For when every judgement is the act of hym that judgeth, it behoveth that every man performe hys worke and purpose, not by any forayne or straunge power or facultie, but by his owne proper power, and strength.”

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Tr. George Colville (1556); source https://books.google.com/books?id=649EAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA129
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book V

“All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That’s Ophelia, that Cordelia.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Lapis Lazuli http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1522/, st. 2
Last Poems (1936-1939)

“Anybody who performs his necessary duties that God has obliged him perform, he himself will be one of the best worshippers of all.”

Ali Zayn al-Abidin (659–713) Great-grandson of the Prophet Muhammad

Muhammad al-Hur al-Aamili, Wasā'il al-Shī‘ah, vol.11, p. 206.
Religious wisdom

God

“I think our preparation has been good, we’ve worked extremely hard individually and as a team, and when it’s come to games the guys have stepped up and performed under pressure. That’s exactly what we need if we are to be very successful at this tournament. Under pressure the bowlers performed very well at the death, but now it’s about doing it when it counts. The best thing is we’ve got these experiences to call on when the tournament starts and we’re actually under real pressure when it really matters. Fingers crossed the guys can take all that confidence forward into the group games.”

Joe Root (1990) English cricketer

On World T20, "World T20: Joe Root challenges England squad to keep their cool in India" http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/mar/14/world-t20-england-india-mumbai, March 14, 2016. Steve Smith

Death , Guy , Confidence , Game

“…faith and repentance, i. e. believing Jesus to be the Messiah, and a good life, are the indispensable conditions of the new covenant, to be performed by all those who would obtain eternal life. (The reasonableness, or rather necessity of which, that we may the better comprehend, we must a little look back to what was said in the beginning”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

§ 106
The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695)

Life , Faith

“The Moon is also on the level with the heavenly planets, and only persons who have performed virtues only — performing sacrifices, giving charity and undergoing severe austerities — can be allowed to enter into the heavenly planets after the duration of life of the body. Arjuna was allowed to enter into the heavenly planets in the selfsame body simply by the grace of the Lord, otherwise it is not possible to do so. The present attempts to enter into the heavenly planets by the modern scientists will certainly prove futile because such scientists are not on the level of Arjuna. They are ordinary human beings, without any assets of sacrifice, charity or austerities.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 1, Chapter 15, verse 12, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/1/15/12
Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Science

Life , Personality

“As random and as subjective as this award is, it means a great deal in a year of extraordinary, yet again, extraordinary performances by women … And perhaps those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the center are niche experiences. They are not. Audiences want to see them, and in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people.”

Cate Blanchett (1969) Australian actress

After winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Blue Jasmine, (2 March 2014)

Women , Money , People , World

“A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed. Any prelude or fugue of Bach can be played at any tempo, with or without rhythmic nuances, and it will still be great music. That's how music should be written, so that no-one, no matter how philistine, can ruin it.”

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) Russian composer and pianist

Letter to Isaac Glikman, August 28, 1955; Josiah Fisk & Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (1997) p. 364.

Beauty , Music

“I do not mean that it is not worthwhile to attempt a revision of the canon or that no success is possible. A few valuable minor changes have been made to our sense of the basic material of the history of music, and other alterations are still waiting to take hold. Gesualdo has not displaced Monteverdi or Palestrina but has won a permanent place; on the other hand, the attempt to convince us that Telemann is a major composer appears to have been abandoned. Alkan has not had the breakthrough his admirers had hoped for. Attacks on Tchaikovsky have not had much success in removing his music from the repertory; his credit with performers has not changed a bit.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Frontiers of Meaning: Three Informal Lectures on Music (1994), Ch. 2 : How to Become Immortal

Hope , Music , History , Sense

“You have despoiled Churches. You have threatened every corporation and endowment in the country. You have examined into everybody's affairs. You have criticized every profession and vexed every trade. No one is certain of his property, and nobody knows what duties he may have to perform tomorrow. This is the policy of confiscation as compared with that of concurrent endowment.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1873/mar/11/second-reading-adjourned-debate in the House of Commons (11 March 1873).

Country

“Markets are institutions that exist to facilitate exchange, that is, they exist in order to reduce the cost of carrying out exchange transactions. In an economic theory which assumes that transaction costs are nonexistent. markets have no function to perform, and it seems perfectly reasonable to develop the theory of exchange by an elaborate analysis of individuals exchanging nuts for apples on the edge of the forest or some similar fanciful example. This analysis certainly shows why there is a gain from trade, but it fails to deal with the factors which determine how much trade there is or what goods are traded.”

Ronald H. Coase (1910–2013) British economist and author

1960s-1980s, "The Firm, the Market, and the Law" (1988)

“In the performance of a task thus generally delineated I shall endeavor to select men whose diligence and talents will insure in their respective stations able and faithful cooperation, depending for the advancement of the public service more on the integrity and zeal of the public officers than on their numbers.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

First Inaugural Address (4 March 1829).
1820s

Men , Faith , Dependency

“Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful; therefore the worse they are performed, the better.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

The Problem of China (1922), Ch. XII: The Chinese Character
1920s

“The one who performs a deed and his heart does not believe in that deed, Allah will not accept any of his practices - but that it be along with the sincerity of intention.”

Ali al-Hadi (829–868) imam

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 473.
Religious Wisdom

Heart , Sincerity

“Morale in an organization does not mean that "people get along together"; the test is performance not conformance.”

Peter F. Drucker book Effective Executive

The Effective Executive (1966)
1960s - 1980s

People

“The U. S. military has performed valiantly and brilliantly in Iraq. Our troops have done all that we have asked them to do and more. But no amount of American soldiers can solve the political differences at the heart of somebody else's civil war, nor settle the grievances in the hearts of the combatants.
It is my firm belief that the responsible course of action - for the United States, for Iraq, and for our troops - is to oppose this reckless escalation and to pursue a new policy. This policy that I've laid out is consistent with what I have advocated for well over a year, with many of the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, and with what the American people demanded in the November election.
When it comes to the war in Iraq, the time for promises and assurances, for waiting and patience, is over. Too many lives have been lost and too many billions have been spent for us to trust the President on another tried and failed policy opposed by generals and experts, Democrats and Republicans, Americans and many of the Iraqis themselves.
It is time for us to fundamentally change our policy. It is time to give Iraqis their country back. And it is time to refocus America's efforts on the challenges we face at home and the wider struggle against terror yet to be won.”

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

Floor Statement on Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007 (30 January 2007)
2007

War , People , Home , Effort

“I appreciate being picked one of the top 100 performers, but who is number one and who is number two doesn't matter to me anymore. Because it won't be who I think it should be. The Rolling Stones started with me, but they're going to always be in front of me. The Beatles started with me — at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, before they ever made an album — but they're going to always be in front of me. James Brown, Jimi Hendrix — these people started with me. I fed them, I talked to them, and they're going to always be in front of me.”

Little Richard (1932) American pianist, singer and songwriter

On Rolling Stone list on 100 Greatest Artists, 100 Greatest Artists | Little Richard | Rolling Stone http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-artists-of-all-time-19691231/little-richard-20110420
Song lyrics, Others

People , Star , Thinking

“Essentially, economic analysis consists of: (1) an understanding of the categories of action and an understanding of the meaning of a change in values, costs, technological knowledge, etc.; (2) a description of a situation in which these categories assume concrete meaning, where definite people are identified as actors with definite objects specified as their means of action, with definite goals identified as values and definite things specified as costs; and (3) a deduction of the consequences that result from the performance of some specified action in this situation, or of the consequences that result for an actor if this situation is changed in a specified way. And this deduction must yield a priori-valid conclusions, provided there is no flaw in the very process of deduction and the situation and the change introduced into it being given, and a priori—valid conclusions about reality if the situation and situation—change, as described, can themselves be identified as real, because then their validity would ultimately go back to the indisputable validity of the categories of action.”

Hans-Hermann Hoppe book A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism

A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism: Economics, Politics, and Ethics (Kluwer: 1989): 118-19.
A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism (1989)

People , Way , Understanding , Knowledge