Quotes about quit
page 27

“The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend.”

Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception

Page 191
The Doors of Perception (1954)

Understanding

“Torture will give a dozen pence or more
To keep a drab from bawling at his door.
The public taste is quite a different thing—
Torture is positively paid to sing.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

"On Torture: A Public Singer"
Sonnets and Verse (1938)

Singing

“Will it ever cloy
This odd diversity of misery and joy
I'm feeling quite insane and young again
And all because I'm mad about the boy”

Noel Coward (1899–1973) English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer

Mad About the Boy (1932)

Feeling, Boy, Joy, Madness

“In science as in love a concentration on technique is quite likely to lead to impotence.”

Peter L. Berger (1929–2017) Austrian-born American sociologist

Source: Invitation to Sociology (1963), Chapter 1

Love, Science

“Your letter became before I was up this morning – Yes nice to get. I recognize two of the drawings you speak of – Number one is the first of the dozen or more you speak of – number 2 came next The last – It didn't quite satisfy me so I tried again – the last one was so much worse than the one you like that I thought I had just about worn the idea out so quit... You ask me what I did with the rest of myself when I made number 2 -... I sat up almost all night one night this week and made the most infernally ugly little shape you ever saw – I wanted to break it when I got through – but didn't then next afternoon when I had time to look at it, it amused me so that I didn't – really its laughable – it's so ugly – and still some way it's quite beautiful – I don't know – I may break it up – or I may try to cast it just for fun – I have another idea that I'm in an awful stew to model – I am going to get a lot of patience so I can make all the little do-dangles I want to and won't have to break one up so I can make another – I want to make a big one..”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Canyon, Texas, (September, 1916), p. 198
1915 - 1920, Letters to Anita Pollitzer' (1916)

Beauty, Way, Idea, Time

“Grant's most generous treatment of the Confederate army at Vicksburg, after its surrender, satisfied the President that he would be equally generous to Generals Lee and Johnston. I am quite sure that General Grant shared the convictions of the President, that we should deal with the Confederates in the most generous manner and thereby bring about a lasting peace. I was present almost always at the interviews between the President and General Grant, and, though the former did most of the talking, General Grant agreed with him in his views of the situation.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 317

Peace

“If an artist can't do anymore, then he should just quit; and an artist ought to be able to change his style without feeling bad. I heard that Lichtenstein said he might not be painting comic strips a year of two from now [1963]. I think that would be so great, to be able to change styles. And I think that's what's going to happen; that's going to be the whole new scene.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1963 - 1967, What Is Pop Art? Interviews with Eight Painters, Part 1 (1963), pp. 116-19

Feeling, Thinking, Change, Painting

“The greatest hero of Greece was Hercules. He was a personage of quite another order from the great hero of Athens, Theseus. He was what all Greece, except Athens, most admired. The Athenians were different from the other Greeks, and their hero therefore was different. Theseus was, of course, bravest of the brave, as all heroes are; but, unlike other heroes, he was as compassionate as he was brave, and a man of great intellect as well as great bodily strength. It was natural that the Athenians should have such a hero, because they valued thought and ideas, as no other part of the country did. In Theseus their ideal was embodied. But Hercules embodied what the rest of Greece most valued. His qualities were those the Greeks in general honored and admired. Except for unflinching courage, they were not those that distinguished Theseus. Hercules was the strongest man on earth, and he had the supreme self-confidence magnificent physical strength gives. He considered himself on an equality with the gods.”

Edith Hamilton book Mythology

Source: Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (1942), Ch. 11

God, Confidence, Idea, Courage

“My mother told me I said to her, at age three, 'I'm going to go to Italy and get my father in a tractor.' 'You've never seen quite so fierce a little boy as you were,' she told me. She tried to explain that I couldn't get my father in a tractor. Apparently I looked at her and narrowed my eyes and said 'In that case, I'm going in a double-decker bus,' and stomped off. Which is kind of funny, but it's very sad, as well.”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

In an interview in Rolling Stones Magazine, September 30, 2010, talking about his father who was killed in WWII.
Miscellaneous

Age, Sadness, Boy

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

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

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

Sadness, Memory

“He wandered away, weeping, away from the farm and up to the rocks at the foot of the mountain, quite overpowered by the evil that seems so often to prevail in life and even to rule it. But what do you think he heard from the rocks at the foot of the mountain? Why, he heard the most delightful singing!”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

excerpt from the mother's story in "Of Song"
Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1935), Book One, Part II: Free of Debt

Life, Mountain, Thinking, Evil

“Contemporary institutional theorizing in the field of organizations dates back thirty-odd years. This particularly describes what are called new or neo-institutionalisms. These terms evoke contrasts with earlier theories of the embeddedness of organizations in social and cultural contexts, now retrospectively called the ‘old institutionalism’ (Hirsch & Lounsbury, 1997; Stinchcombe, 1997). They went through a period of inattention, so that when institutional thinking came back in force after the 1960s, it seemed quite new.
Institutional theories, as they emerged in the 1970s, received much attention in the field, along with other lines of thought emphasizing the dependence of modern organizations on their environments. Perhaps surprisingly, they continue to receive attention, and seem to retain substantial measures of vigor.”

John W. Meyer (1935) Sociologist and professor at Stanford University

Source: "Reflections on institutional theories of organization,." 2008, p. 790

Thinking, Dependency

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

Jean Metzinger (1883–1956) French painter

Cubism was born

Faith, Dreams, Art, Drink

“Every picture shop is filled with pictures of the Emperor; every photographer's with photos--all sizes and in all kinds of positions, in and out of uniform, in different uniforms, looking condescending, looking dignified, on horseback in uniform, on horseback in plain clothes, on donkeyback, head and shoulders without legs, legs without head and shoulders, helmet in hand, helmet on head, helmet on tail, flying in mid air etc. etc. All the statuary too turns on the Emperor. There are busts chiselled in all sizes and the number of different varieties to be seen in halls, houses, shop windows etc. is something quite unbearable. The toy shops are filled with toy Emperors; when he was young the boy Emperor; then the man Emperor; in fact Berlin is saturated with the blessed Emperor as man, woman, boy, girl, soldier, tinker, tailor. The end of it all will be that the people will go stark staring mad and the Emperor himself will go off with a bang the verdict being: "Death from explosion owing to his receiving more hero-worship than the human frame can bear!"”

Edward German (1862–1936) English musician and composer

In a letter to his sister, describing his observations from a trip to Germany of the cult-like status given the Kaiser.

Death, People, Photo, Girl

“In the Critique of Cynical Reasoning, a great bestseller in Germany (Sloterdijk, 1983), Peter Sloterdijk puts forward the thesis that ideology's dominant mode of functioning is cynical which renders impossible - or, more precisely, vain - the classical critical-ideological procedure. The cynical subject is quite aware of the distance between the ideological mask and the social reality, but he none the less still insists upon the mask”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

Source: The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989), pp.29, "Cynicism as a Form of Ideology"

Reality

“No man who is in a hurry is quite civilized.”

Will Durant book The Story of Civilization

Source: The Story of Civilization (1935–1975), II - Life of Greece (1939), Ch. XII : Work and Wealth in Athens, p. 277 http://books.google.com/books?id=l2wgAAAAMAAJ&q=%22no+man+who+is+in+a+hurry+is+quite+civilized%22&pg=PA277#v=onepage

“I once spoke to a human geneticist who declared that the notion of intelligence was quite meaningless, so I tried calling him unintelligent. He was annoyed, and it did not appease him when I went on to ask how he came to attach such a clear meaning to the notion of lack of intelligence. We never spoke again.”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

Source: 1970s, Advice to a Young Scientist (1979), p. 25, footnote to previous quotation.

Intelligence

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

Kingsley Amis book The Old Devils

The Old Devils (1986)

People, Way, Nature, Problem

“Luther's merit in literary history is of the greatest: his dialect became the language of all writing. They are not well written, these Four-and-twenty Quartos of his; written hastily, with quite other than literary objects. But in no Books have I found a more robust, genuine, I will say noble faculty of a man than in these. A rugged honesty, homeliness, simplicity; a rugged sterling sense and strength. He dashes out illumination from him; his smiting idiomatic phrases seem to cleave into the very secret of the matter. Good humor too, nay tender affection, nobleness and depth: this man could have been a Poet too! He had to work an Epic Poem, not write one.”

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

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Priest

Secret, Books, History, Sense

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

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

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

Money, Smile, Home, Game

“I don't know who my audience is. People have said there is an integrity about me, and I think there is. I don't try to follow a trend. I have my own little path, and although I delve into things, I stay with what I am. I'm quite natural with it. Maybe people feel comfortable with that and they trust it, so they buy it. They'll come and see me in concert. I think I always do a good job in that area.”

Sarah Brightman (1960) British soprano, musical theatre actress, and dancer

The Irish Times (1999)

People, Feeling, Nature, Thinking

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

Ted Cruz (1970) American politician

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

Law, Way, Nature, Change

“Whatever is common to children of a given age is set up as the fundamental character of that age. The fact that three-year-old children are quite often negative is considered evidence that negativism is inherent in the nature of three-year-olds, and the concept of a negative age or stage is then regarded as an explanation for the appearance of negativism.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Source: 1930s, The conflict between Aristotelian and Galileian modes of thought in contemporary psychology, 1931, p. 153 as cited in: Eells, T. D. (2007). " Generating and generalizing knowledge about psychotherapy from pragmatic case studies http://www2.scc.rutgers.edu/journals/index.php/pcsp/article/viewFile/893/2263". In: Pragmatic Case Studies in Psychotherapy, Vol 3, Nr. 1, p. 35-54.

Children, Age, Nature, Appearance

“I had to tell him quite plainly that the Belgians had lost only 16,000 men in the war, and that, when all was said, Belgium had not made greater sacrifices than Great Britain. The truth is that we are always called upon to foot the bill. When anything has to be done it is "Old England" that has to do it. If the Rumanians have to be supplied with food and credits have to be given, in the final result England has to stand the racket. It is time that we again told the world what we have done. These things tend to be forgotten. Our policy is quite clear but imperfectly understood. We mean that the French shall have coal in the Saar Valley and that the Poles shall have access to the sea through Danzig; but we don't want to create a condition of affairs that will be likely to lead to another war. We don't want to place millions of Germans under the domination of the French and the Poles. That would not be for their benefit, and what is the use of setting up a lot of Alsace-Lorraines?”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Quoted in Lord Riddell's diary entry (31 March 1919), J. M. McEwen (ed.), The Riddell Diaries 1908-1923 (London: The Athlone Press, 1986), pp. 263-264
Prime Minister

Men, War, Truth, World

“When I see that man on the telly — 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' No! I'm definitely not! I find most of it quite offensive!”

John Prescott (1938) Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1997–2007)

Referring to the slogan used by Michael Howard during the 2005 General Election campaign, as quoted in "Election 2005: Aggressive and voluble — but the real thing" by Oliver Burkeman, in The Guardian (21 April 2005), p. 6

Thinking

“In schools, for example, there are courses in the criticism of literature, art criticism, and so forth. The arts are supposed to be 'not real.' It is quite safe, therefore, to criticize them in that regard -- to see how a story or a painting is constructed, or more importantly, to critically analyze the structure of ideas, themes, or beliefs that appear, say, in the poem or work of fiction. When children are taught science, there is no criticism allowed. They are told, 'This is how things are.' Science's reasons are given as the only true statements about reality, with which no student is expected to quarrel. Any strong intellectual explorations or counter versions of reality have appeared in science fiction, for example. Here scientists, many being science-fiction buffs, can channel their own intellectual questioning into a safe form. 'This is, after all, merely imaginative and not to be taken seriously.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981), p. 145-146

Children, School, Art, Imagination

“In a word, man in London is not quite so good a creature as he is out of it.”

John Galt (novelist) (1779–1839) British writer

The Ayrshire Legatees (Edinburgh: Blackwood, [1821] 1823) pp. 163-4.

“Only while they are conforming their actions to the model of some archetypal hero do the Arunta feel that they are truly alive, for in those roles they are immortal. The occasions on which they slip from such molds are quite meaningless, for time immediately devours those occasions and reduces them to nothingness.”

Huston Smith book The World's Religions

On Australian indigenous spirituality.
The World's Religions (1991)

Feeling, Time

“I'm becoming very interested in non-Western things, and in Europe a lot of what's offered to me is the Western tradition I've grown up with. Now I've got to find a way out, but the problem is that the piano is just about as Western as you can get. The piano's my instrument, and I wouldn't want it any other way, but I'm gravitating quite naturally towards things that have developed my sense of rhythm. "I've come to all this incredible Indian classical music and its more modern formations late in the day; the Messiaen I've played has led me down that road, and I've been following my nose all the time.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

The Times, 15/12/1998
Musician's life

Music, Way, Nature, Problem

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating. There was a widespread myth of the 1970s, a myth along Tom Kuhn’s (1962) Structure of Scientific Revolutions lines. The Keynesianism, which worked so well in Camelot and brought forth a long epoch of price-level stability with good Q growth and nearly full employment, gave way to a new and quite different macro view after 1966. A new paradigm, monistic monetarism, so the tale narrates, gave a better fit. And therefore King Keynes lost self esteem and public esteem. The King is dead. Long live King Milton!
Contemplate the true facts. Examine 10 prominent best forecasting models 1950 to 1980: Wharton, Townsend–Greenspan, Michigan Model, St. Louis Reserve Bank, Citibank Economic Department under Walter Wriston’s choice of Lief Olson, et cetera. … M did matter as for almost everyone. But never did M alone matter systemically, as post-1950 Friedman monetarism professed.”

Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist

New millennium, An Interview with Paul A. Samuelson, 2003

Way, Dead

“Visionaries are the first people in their industry segment to see the potential of the High Tech Marketing Enlightenment new technology. Fundamentally, they see themselves as smarter than their opposite numbers in competitive companies—and, quite often, they are. Indeed, it is their ability to see things first that they want to leverage into a competitive advantage. That advantage can only come about if no one else has discovered it. They do not expect, therefore, to be buying a well—tested product with an extensive list of industry references. Indeed, if such a reference base exists, it may actually turn them off, indicating that for this technology, at any rate, they are already too late.”

Geoffrey Moore book Crossing the Chasm

Source: Crossing the Chasm, 1991, p. 41-42

People

“When I started writing I was a great rationalist and believed I was absolutely in control. But the older one gets, the more confused, and for an artist I think that is quite a good thing: you allow in more of your instinctual self; your dreams, fantasies and memories. It's richer, in a way.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

14th time lucky (2005)

Dreams, Way, Thinking, Memory

“Faith has its price. When misfortune strikes the true believer, he assumes he has done something to deserve punishment, but isn’t quite certain what. The realist, recognizing that he lives in a Darwinian universe, is simply grateful to have made it to another sunset.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Deepsix (2001), Chapter 10 (p. 165)

Faith, Universe

“Most of my poetry lies beyond the SF field, yet here I am corralled into 'SF poetry' as part of this poetry weekend. Of course, some might say, 'you've made your own bed — now you must lie in it!' But, while fully accepting that dictum, I'm not yet quite prepared to lie down…”

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) British science fiction author

As quoted in web article "The Brian Aldiss Connection" http://www.zone-sf.com/brianaldiss.html, The Zone

Lie, Parting

“The term "instrumentalism," which has largely superseded the broader term "pragmatism," emphasizes the subordination of the intellect to ends beyond itself. But the organic analogy does in fact point to quite a different conclusion. Most organic functions are interested in their own behalf. I may even breathe for the sake of breathing. I may identify my soul with my lungs. … Or consider the predatory instinct. This evidently has its place in the economy of life by virtue of providing food for carnivorous animals; but hunting is also an art and a pastime, which many have thought worth cultivating as an end in itself. What is true of respiration and huntsmanship can scarcely be denied of an activity so developed, so varied, so self-conscious, as that of the intellect. Nor in this case any more than the others, does the subordinate role contradict the autonomous role. The devotee of breathing or of hunting need not cease to breathe or hunt for vital purposes; nor need the intellectualist, the scientist, the speculative philosopher, because he has cultivated the art of knowing for its own sake, therefore cease to use his mind for the conduct of affairs.”

Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) American philosopher

The Integrity of the Intellect (July 1920)

Life, Food, Art, Soul

“I was twenty-one at the time, about to turn twenty-two. No prospect of graduating soon, and yet no reason to quit school. Caught in the most curiously depressing circumstances. For months I'd been stuck, unable to take one step in any new direction. The world kept moving on; I alone was at a standstill. In the autumn, everything took on a desolate cast, the colors swiftly fading before my eyes. The sunlight, the smell of the grass, the faintest patter of rain, everything got on my nerves.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 1: Wednesday Afternoon Picnic

World, School, Color, Autumn

“I often get letters, quite frequently, from people who say how they like the programmes a lot, but I never give credit to the almighty power that created nature. To which I reply and say, "Well, it's funny that the people, when they say that this is evidence of the Almighty, always quote beautiful things. They always quote orchids and hummingbirds and butterflies and roses." But I always have to think too of a little boy sitting on the banks of a river in west Africa who has a worm boring through his eyeball, turning him blind before he's five years old. And I reply and say, "Well, presumably the God you speak about created the worm as well," and now, I find that baffling to credit a merciful God with that action. And therefore it seems to me safer to show things that I know to be truth, truthful and factual, and allow people to make up their own minds about the moralities of this thing, or indeed the theology of this thing.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

From the BBC documentary Life on Air (2002)

God, People, Truth, Beauty

“The range of human skin colours is quite narrow when you think about it -- and I do -- and subtle -- beige, pink, white, tan, taupe, …”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Philip
8 1/2 Women

Thinking

“Computer science is still a young field. The first computers were built in the mid 1940s, since when the field has developed tremendously. Applications from the early years of computerization can be characterized as follows: the programs were quite small, certainly when compared to those that are currently being constructed; they were written by one person; they were written and used by experts in the application area concerned. The problems to be solved were mostly of a technical nature, and the emphasis was on expressing known algorithms efficiently in some programming language. Input typically consisted of numerical data, read from such media as punched tape or punched cards. The output, also numeric, was printed on paper. Programs were run off-line. If the program contained errors, the programmer studied an octal or hexadecimal dump of memory. Sometimes, the execution of the program would be followed by binary reading machine registers at the console.”

Hans van Vliet (1949) Dutch computer scientist

Source: Software Engineering: Principles and Practice, 2007, p. 2

Error, Nature, Problem, Study

“Before the Iraq war I was quite disturbed by some of the neoconservatives, who were saying things like, "What is the point of being a superpower if you can't do such-and-such, take on these responsibilities?" The point of being a superpower is that people will leave you alone.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

"Live" with Thomas Sowell https://www.aei.org/publication/live-thomas-sowell/, The American Enterprise, September 2004. 2000s

War, People

“When Heracles was quite a young man and was nearly of the age at which you yourselves are now, while he was deliberating which of the two roads he should take, the one leading through toils to virtue, or the easiest, two women approached him, and these were Virtue and Vice. Now at once, although they were silent, the difference between them was evident from their appearance. For the one had been decked out for beauty through the art of toiletry, and was overflowing with voluptuousness, and she was leading a whole swarm of pleasures in her train; now these things she displayed, and promising still more than these she tried to draw Heracles to her. But the other was withered and squalid, and had an intense look, and spoke quite differently; for she promised nothing dissolute or pleasant, but countless sweating toils and labours and dangers through every land and sea. But the prize to be won by these was to become a god, as the narrative of Prodicus expressed it; and it was this second woman that Heracles in the end followed.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

Source: On Greek Literature, p. 399

Women, God, Pleasure, Age

“An idea, a relationship, can go extinct, just like an animal or a plant. The idea in this case is 'nature,' the separate and wild province, the world apart from man to which he adapted, under whose rules he was born and died. In the past, we spoiled and polluted parts of that nature, inflicted environmental 'damage.' But that was like stabbing a man with toothpicks: though it hurt, annoyed, degraded, it did not touch vital organs, block the path of lymph or blood. We never thought that we had wrecked nature. Deep down, we never really thought we could: it was too big and too old; its forces—the wind, the rain, the sun—were too strong, too elemental. But, quite by accident, it turned out that the carbon dioxide and other gases we were producing in our pursuit of a better life… could alter the power of the sun, could increase its heat. And that increase could change the patterns of moisture and dryness, breed storms in new places, breed deserts… We have produced the carbon dioxide—we are ending nature.”

Bill McKibben book The End of Nature

Source: The End of Nature (1989), p. 41

Life, World, Idea, Nature

“In 1940, some of us woke up to find ourselves without hope – to find that painting did not really exist. Or to coin a modern phrase, painting.... was dead. The awakening had a exaltation of a revolution. It was that awakening that inspired the aspiration – the high purpose – quite a different thing from ambition – to start from scratch, to paint as if painting never existed before. It was that naked revolutionary moment that made painters out of painters.”

Barnett Newman (1905–1970) American artist

in Jackson Pollock: An Artists Symposium, ARTnews Vol. 66 no. 2 April 1967; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrahams Publishers, New York 1990, pp. 147-148
1960 - 1970

Hope, Painting, Dead

“What on earth has given opera its prestige in western civilisation — a prestige that has outlasted so many different fashions and ways of thought? Why are people prepared to sit silently for three hours listening to a performance of which they do not understand a word and of which they very seldom know the plot? Why do quite small towns all over Germany and Italy still devote a large portion of their budgets to this irrational entertainment? Partly, of course, because it is a display of skill, like a football match. But chiefly, I think, because it is irrational. "What is too silly to be said may be sung" — well, yes; but what is too subtle to be said, or too deeply felt, or too revealing or too mysterious — these things can also be sung and can only be sung.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: Civilisation (1969), Ch. 9: The Pursuit of Happiness; "What is too silly to be said may be sung" is a commonly used translation or paraphrase of lines from Act I, Scene ii of the play The Barber of Seville by Pierre de Beaumarchais, which was the basis of famous operas.

People, Way, Fashion, Understanding

“People may wonder why I am content to prescribe such a general and apparently vague formula as "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better" for all and every ailment. The reason is, strange as it may seem, that our subconscious mind does not need the details. The general suggestion that everything "in every way" is going well is quite sufficient to set up the procedure of persuasion which will carry its effects to the different organs and improve every function. I have had remarkable demonstration of this in the course of my long teaching and experiments. Time and again I have seen patients cured, not only of the particular disease for which they sought relief, but also of minor disabilities which they had almost forgotten.”

Emile Coué (1857–1926) French psychologist and pharmacist

Source: Autosuggestion : My method (2014), Chapter III: Auto-suggestion in practice.

People, Disease, Way, Time

“I remember reading about a story about a guy – and this was in England, and no more than a couple of years ago. He’d gone to see a psychic, and was told there was a curse on his family, and in order to release the curse, he had to bring with him the following week £5,000 and burn it… if he didn’t do that, either he or his son would die. The scam is quite a common one – the money is put in an envelope, and apparently burnt, but of course the ‘psychic’ secretly switches the envelope and burns an envelope full of newspaper. What happened was the guy went away, and he knew he couldn’t raise £5000, but didn’t want his son to die; so he killed himself.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV recordings of stage shows, Something Wicked This Way Comes (2006), Something Wicked This Way Comes tour brochure

Money, Family, Guy, Reading

“I quote somewhere a correspondence with Ken Arrow, after he wrote Arrow and Hahn. I wrote to him and I said that the trouble is that neoclassical economists confuse risk with uncertainty. Uncertainty means non-probabilistic. And he said, 'Quite true, you're quite correct that Keynes is much more fruitful, but the trouble with the General Theory is, those things that were fruitful couldn't be developed into a nice precise analytical statement, and those things that could were retrogressions from Keynes but could be developed into a nice precise analytical statement.' That's why mainstream economics went that route. And my answer is, I would hope that even Nobel Prize winners didn't believe that regression is growth, which it clearly isn't. But that's right. The fear that everybody has, you see, is nihilism: you won't be able to say what's going to happen. Well, evolutionists don't worry about being unable to predict. You ask the evolutionists, who tell you what happened in the past, just what next species is going to appear, and the answer is, anything could. Right? Does that bother people? Explanation is the first thing in science. If you can't explain, you don't have anything. But you needn't necessarily predict. Now, if you know the future's uncertain, what does that mean? It means basically, the way Hicks put it in his later years, that humans have free will. The human system isn't deterministic or stochastic, which is deterministic with a random error. Humans can do thins to change the world.”

Paul Davidson (1930) Post Keynesian economist

quoted in Conversations with Post Keynesians (1995) by J. E. King

People, World, Fear, Hope

“Youngsters of this generation seem not quite so hazardous except in the way of mechanical speed, bad liquor and venereal diseases.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

From a letter to H. P. Lovecraft (c. April 1932)
Letters

Disease, Way, Speed

“I don’t believe in spiritualism. Personally, I find it quite ugly.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Derren Brown: Séance (2004)

Personality

“There have indeed been civilizations upon your planet that understood as well as you, and without your kind of technology, the workings of the planets, the positioning of the stars -- people who even foresaw "later" global changes. They used a mental physics. There were men before you who brought back data quite as "scientific" and pertinent. There were those who understood the "origin" of your solar system far better than you. Some of these civilizations did not need spaceships. Instead, highly trained men combining the abilities of dream-art scientists and mental physicists cooperated at journeys not only through time but through space.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The “Unknown” Reality: Volume One, (1977), p. 196, Session 702

Men, People, Dreams, Art

“I see the maths face quite a lot. It’s the blind panic that they have to do maths in front of people. It’s just fear and dread. There’s definitely a maths face – try it on someone.”

Rachel Riley (1986) television presenter

Interview, The Observer, 12 Oct 2014 http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/oct/12/rachel-riley-countdown-stop-saying-girls-arent-good-at-maths

People, Fear

“Quite frankly, I think Hitler will win. I do not say that Hitler will be able to invade this country. It is a very difficult channel to cross. Lots of people have tried it, including Napoleon…I would not have gone to war without having Russia on our side. It was an idiotic thing to do.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Quoted in A. J. Sylvester's diary entry (26 November 1941), Colin Cross (ed.), Life with Lloyd George. The Diary of A. J. Sylvester 1931-45 (London: Macmillan, 1975), pp. 296-298
Later life

War, People, Thinking, Country

“There is an element of performance to leadership, because you’re on public display, and I suppose I must be attracted to that. Although, probably more than the leadership, I’m more attracted to characters who are quite extreme, and could be considered borderline monsters. It’s something you can get your teeth into, and I find the psychology fascinating. It’s interesting that in searching for monsters to play, you often end up playing leaders.”

Michael Sheen (1969) Welsh actor

Interview with Andrew Mueller, The Independent 10 December 2003 http://www.andrewmueller.net/display.lasso?id=245

“I was deeply moved by the incomparable achievements of the German Wehrmacht, leading to such prodigious successes. I followed the development of operations in minute detail with the aid of maps. Under brilliant leadership all sections of the armed forces displayed the greatest courage to achieve deeds that were quite stunning. The ignominy of November 1918 in the forest of Compiègne has been wiped out and the Diktat of Versailles torn up!”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Letter to Kurt Jagow (5 July 1940), quoted in John C. G. Röhl, Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile 1900-1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 1238
1940s

Courage, Success

“Sports are positively essential. It is healthy to engage in sports, they are beautiful and liberal, liberal in the sense that nothing serves quite as well to integrate social classes, etc., than street or public games.”

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

Letter to A.S. Suvorin (March 16, 1895)
Letters

Beauty, Game, Sense, Sport

“I went round to all these minority sports and I couldn't really appreciate them. Fencing, for example, is just "click, click, click" and it is over. Then they retire. Then they go again "On guard — click, click, click" and it is over again. You just think, "what is this sport?" I thought this is really boring and then I went to Judo and it was just the same thing. These two guys just endlessly circling each other, acting as if what they are trying to do is take the others shirt off without him realising this is what they are trying to do. I just thought "what is this? I don't understand this at all". Then I went to table tennis, which obviously I could identify with because I had played it myself — not quite at Olympic standard — but I could understand it. It suddenly became clear to me that these people really are so far beyond anything I could ever dream of becoming. I felt really terrible because I hadn't appreciated the fencers. The reason I couldn't follow them was because they were so damn good. Their hands were so quick that I couldn't see what was going on.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

Interview with Stanford's Newsletter (June 2001)

People, Dreams, Guy, Understanding

“Unfortunately, many programs are so big that there is no one individual who really knows all the pieces, and so the amount of code sharing you get isn't as great. Also, the opportunity to go back and really rewrite something isn't quite as great, because there's always a new set of features that you're adding on to the same program.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Source: Interview from Programmers at Work (1986)

“Tho none ought to conclude that their day or season of grace is quite expired, yet they ought to deeply apprehend the danger, lest it should expire before their necessary work be done and their peace made. For tho it can be of no use for them to know the former, and therefore they have no means appointed them by which to know it, 'tis of great use to apprehend the latter; and they have sufficient ground for the apprehension.”

John Howe (1630–1705) English Puritan theologian

The Redeemer's Tears Wept Over Lost Souls (1684)

Peace, Season

“Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs. Worthington
Don’t put your daughter on the stage
The profession is overcrowded
And the struggle’s pretty tough
And admitting the fact she’s burning to act
That isn’t quite enough
She’s a big girl and though her teeth are fairly good
She’s not the type I ever would be eager to engage
I repeat, Mrs. Worthington, sweet Mrs. Worthington
Don’t put your daughter on the stage.”

Noel Coward (1899–1973) English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer

Mrs Worthington (1933).

Girl, Daughters

“That painting with that man - that drunken man - was first a soup-distribution [on the streets], which I had seen, and for which I also made those studies of which you speak. Also failed; simply due to lack of perseverance. I have made another drawing of it, which V. Wisselingh found quite good and he afterwards sold to an American, and he does not know where it has gone.”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) Dat schilderij met die man, die dronken man was eerst een soep-uitdeeling, die ik gezien had, en waarvoor ik ook die studies gemaakt heb, waarover je spreekt. Ook mislukt, eenvoudig door gebrek aan doorzetten. Ik heb nog wel een teekening van gemaakt, die V. Wisselingh nogal goed vond en naderhand aan een Amerikaan heeft verkocht, en niet weet waar gebleven is”, aldus Breitner.
In Breitner's letter to Jan Veth, 1901, RKD Den Haag; as cited in Van Gogh en Breitner in Den Haag, Helewise Berger, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, p. 67
1900 - 1923

Study, Drawing, Painting, Perseverance

“I'm bereft of spiritual solutions. I do believe that there has to be a better world, but that's rather simple. I'm quite obsessed with death. I've gone through periods of intense envy for people who've died. Yes, I have a dramatic unswayable unavoidable obsession with death. I can remember being obsessed with it from the age of eight and I often wondered whether it was quite a natural inbuilt emotion for people who're destined to take their own lives, that they recognise it and begin to study it. If there was a magical beautiful pill that one could take that would retire you from this world, I think I would take it and I suppose that's the extremity of the obsessiveness.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

from "Stop me if you've heard this one before", interview by Len Brown in NME (20 February 1988)
In interviews etc., About life and death

Death, People, Age, World

“It's pleasing to realize that quite a few people enjoy this sort of playfulness and that they are not afraid to look at the relative nature of rock-hard reality.”

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

1950's, On Being a Graphic Artist', 1953

People, Nature, Reality

“There’s no reason why women shouldn’t behave like rational beings,” said Simon stolidly.
Poirot said dryly:
“Quite frequently they do. That is even more upsetting!”

Agatha Christie book Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile (1937)

Women

“The Chinese foreign minister Yang Jia Chi was in Bangalore Tuesday for a bilateral meeting. We are both quite satisfied with the extent of goodwill between us. We are working toward further cordiality between the two countries. The Chinese minister lingered at the dinner in his honor and such gestures indicate the level of relationship between our two countries.”

S. M. Krishna (1932) Indian politician

Regarding the border issues of China and India, October 29, 2009. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/india/091028/sm-krishna-india-foreign-minister-kashmir

Country

“Food is, for me, for everybody, a very sexual thing and I think I realised that quite early on. I still cannot exaggerate how just putting a meal in front of somebody is really more of a buzz for me than anything. And I mean anything. Maybe that goes back to trying to please my dad, I don't know. It's like parenting in a way I suppose.”

Nigel Slater (1958) English food writer, journalist and broadcaster

The Guardian, London, While other boys in his class were reading Shoot! Nigel subscribed to Cordon Bleu magazine, Tim, Adams, 2003-09-14, 2010-05-20 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/story/0,,1040953,00.html,

Food, Way, Thinking, Parent

“Graphic work as the expressive movement of the hand holding the recording pencil.... is so fundamentally different from dealing with tone and color that one can use this technique quite well in the dark, even in the blackest night. On the other hand, tone (movement from light to dark) presupposes some light, and color presupposes a great deal of light.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1912), # 928, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1911 - 1914

Color, Light, Night

“The country does want rest, we all want rest. Our very civilization wants it — and we mean that it shall have it. It shall have rest — repose — refreshment of soul and re-invigoration of faculty. And that rest shall be of life and not of death. It shall not be a poison that pacifies restlessness in death, nor shall it be any kind of anodyne or patting or propping or bolstering — as if a man with a cancer in his breast would be well if he only said he was so and wore a clean shirt and kept his shoes tied. We want the rest of a real Union, not of a name, not of a great transparent sham, which good old gentlemen must coddle and pat and dandle, and declare wheedlingly is the dearest Union that ever was, SO it is; and naughty, ugly old fanatics shan't frighten the pretty precious — no, they sha'n't. Are we babies or men? This is not the Union our fathers framed — and when slavery says that it will tolerate a Union on condition that freedom holds its tongue and consents that the Constitution means first slavery at all costs and then liberty, if you can get it, it speaks plainly and manfully, and says what it means. There are not wanting men enough to fall on their knees and cry: 'Certainly, certainly, stay on those terms. Don't go out of the Union — please don't go out; we'll promise to take great care in future that you have everything you want. Hold our tongues? Certainly. These people who talk about liberty are only a few fanatics — they are tolerably educated, but most of 'em are crazy; we don't speak to them in the street; we don't ask them to dinner; really, they are of no account, and if you'll really consent to stay in the Union, we'll see if we can't turn Plymouth Rock into a lump of dough'. I don't believe the Southern gentlemen want to be fed on dough. I believe they see quite as clearly as we do that this is not the sentiment of the North, because they can read the election returns as well as we. The thoughtful men among them see and feel that there is a hearty abhorrence of slavery among us, and a hearty desire to prevent its increase and expansion, and a constantly deepening conviction that the two systems of society are incompatible. When they want to know the sentiment of the North, they do not open their ears to speeches, they open their eyes, and go and look in the ballot-box, and they see there a constantly growing resolution that the Union of the United States shall no longer be a pretty name for the extension of slavery and the subversion of the Constitution. Both parties stand front to front. Each claims that the other is aggressive, that its rights have been outraged, and that the Constitution is on its side. Who shall decide? Shall it be the Supreme Court? But that is only a co-ordinate branch of the government. Its right to decide is not mutually acknowledged. There is no universally recognized official expounder of the meaning of the Constitution. Such an instrument, written or unwritten, always means in a crisis what the people choose. The people of the United States will always interpret the Constitution for themselves, because that is the nature of popular governments, and because they have learned that judges are sometimes appointed to do partisan service.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Life, Death, Men, People

“First, the eight rules of tolerance: 1. Stay out of the way. 2. Don't pick a fight. 3. If challenged, walk away. 4. Avoid eye contact. 5. If your enemy is diurnal, learn to be nocturnal. 6. Vice versa. 7. Possess nothing the other wants. 8. Draw the line at hurting kids: I will fight to the death.
After tolerance is achieved comes play. Here are the nine rules of play: 1. Know when to quit. 2. Learn how to handicap. 3. Learn what frightens the other (cat claws). 4. Don't let it get to you. It's just a game; you mustn't take it seriously (cats have trouble with this one—escalation is always a risk in cat games). 5. Don't eat your playmate. 6. Pay attention to the signals on the other side—for instance, “enough” and “quit.” 7. Don't suddenly change the rules. 8. Don't be a sore loser. 9. Remember: It's only a game.
And if play succeeds, we can move on to the eight rules of friendship: 1. Learn the rules of your opposite number. 2. Recognize that danger is no longer relevant. 3. Take your time. 4. One step at a time. 5. Apologize often by learning the other's words, gestures, sounds, or postures for “I'm sorry.””

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

6. Acknowledge mistakes. 7. Make the offer of friendship more than once. 8. Express curiosity about what the other is like.
Source: Raising the Peaceable Kingdom (2005), Ch. 5

Death, Friendship, Way, Game

“The most cursory look at cold-reading and suggestion tells us that Tarot cards are not evil; psychics do not ‘usher in’ the Devil or his minions; and even the creepy old Ouija board can be shown to operate via quite everyday, natural, physical forces.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

Nature, Evil, Reading

“And the clergy said, 'Certainly, you're quite right; the disease is awful. Therefore, the only way is to let it alone. Amen. A contribution will now be taken up to extend Gospel privileges to the Philippine Islands'. The abolitionists retorted by declaring that you might as well let fire alone, by telling the free States that they were bound to thrust back fugitives, and were, therefore, themselves the mere bloodhounds and slaves of slavery, which could only live by expansion, and only wanted to be let alone to become impregnable.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Disease, Way

“Still, all this time, I was only barely aware that my subconscious was putting together a layout of the house. It wasn't that I expected to need one, it's just how my mind works. I am, quite frankly, very good at it, and maybe that's where the real pleasure comes in — just the joy of doing something you do well. There are worse reasons for doing things; maybe there aren't any better ones.”

Steven Brust (1955) American fantasy and science fiction author

Kiera the Thief, in Orca (1996), Ch. 9

Pleasure, Time, Joy, Housing

“Let me repeat that the absurd thing about the anti-Islam neo-conservatives is that they are invariably supporters of unrestricted migration, the means by which Islam has quite peacefully established itself as a permanent, growing major social, religious and political force in our country. If Sharia law comes to Britain, as Mr Jacubs fears, it will not be because of violent actions such as the Woolwich outrage, which I think we can safely assume were condemned and disowned by most British Muslims. It will be as the result of the entirely peaceful establishment of a sizeable Muslim population in this country.”

Peter Hitchens (1951) author, journalist

2013-12-28
Another attempt at reasoning with Mr Jacubs and the neo-cons
Mail on Sunday
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/12/another-attempt-at-reasoning-with-mr-jacubs-and-the-neo-cons.html
On neo-conservatism

Fear, Peace, Law, Support

“Nvidia's OpenGL drivers are my 'gold standard', and it has been quite a while since I have had to report a problem to them, and even their brand new extensions work as documented the first time I try them. When I have a problem on an Nvidia, I assume that it is my fault. With anyone else's drivers, I assume it is their fault.”

John D. Carmack (1970) American computer programmer, engineer, and businessman

Quoted in Thomas McGuire, Creative 3D Blaster GeForce4 Ti4400 review http://www.techspot.com/reviews/hardware/3dblaster_ti4400/ti4400-5.shtml TechSpot (2002-05-02)

Problem, Time

“Children are actually very sophisticated. They sleep in your bed for a reason. The child is born, it takes a look around, and thinks "Well this isn't quite what I'd hoped for. All these people are idiots… I wouldn't've have painted the house like this at all… But I've got to make the best of it. I've got to maximize my resources. So the key thing is to stop these people from having any more children."”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On children sleeping in parents' beds.
Like, Totally (2006)

Children, People, Hope, Thinking

“Seeking the invisible through the imagery of the visible, the Americans never can get quite all the way to the end of the American dream.”

Lewis H. Lapham (1935) American journalist

Source: Money And Class In America (1989), Chapter 1, The Gilded Cage, p. 28

Dreams, Way

“The field of mathematics is now so extensive that no one can [any] longer pretend to cover it, least of all the specialist in any one department. Furthermore it takes a century or more to weigh men and their discoveries, thus making the judgment of contemporaries often quite worthless.”

David Eugene Smith (1860–1944) American mathematician

David Eugene Smith, History of Modern Mathematics https://books.google.com/books?id=EwcCAAAAYAAJ, 1896; 1904

Men, Mathematics

“There is a branch of painting next in profit to Portrait and quite within your power without any more drawing them I'm answer for you having, which is Drapery & Land-skip.”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote in: Undated letters to Jackson, in The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough, ed. Mary Woodall, 1961
undated, Undated letters to William Jackson

Drawing, Painting

“It [his participating in the 7th exhibition of the Impressionists, combined with showing his work on the official Salon] isn't exactly a joy, but as I have said, it lets me out of the revolutionary side of the business, which I'm nervous of... It's a little weakness which I hope will be forgiven me [by the other impressionists]... Delacroix used to say, quite rightly, that a painter should win as many honours as possible.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) French painter and sculptor

Quote of Renoir's letter to Durand-Ruel, end of Feb. 1882; as cited in Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 172
1880's

Hope, Business, Joy

“You're a supplement, You're a salve,
You're a bandage, pull it off
I can quit you, cut it out.
You're a patient, iron lung.”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

Official video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZW9NYX6JZA "An Actor Out Of Work" rehearsal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vIbiw_snd4 Actor (2009)

“The finest achievement of the new woman has been personal liberty. This is the foundation of civilization; and as long as any one class is watched suspiciously, even fondly guarded, and protected, so long will that class not only be weak, and treacherous, individually, but parasitic, and a collective danger to the community. Who has not heard wives commended for wheedling their husbands out of money, or joked [about] because they are hopelessly extravagant? As long as caprice and scheming are considered feminine virtues, as long as man is the only wage-earner, doling out sums of money, or scattering lavishly, so long will women be degraded, even if they are perfectly contented, and men are willing to labor to keep them in idleness!

Although individual women from pre-historic times have accomplished much, as a class they have been set aside to minister to men's comfort. But when once the higher has been tried, civilization repudiates the lower. Men have come to see that no advance can be made with one half-humanity set apart merely for the functions of sex; that children are quite liable to inherit from the mother, and should have opportunities to inherit the accumulated ability and culture and character that is produced only by intellectual and civil activity. The world has tried to move with men for dynamos, and "clinging" women impeding every step of progress, in arts, science, industry, professions, they have been a thousand years behind men because forced into seclusion. They have been over-sexed. They have naturally not been impressed with their duties to society, in its myriad needs, or with their own value as individuals.

The new woman, in the sense of the best woman, the flower of all the womanhood of past ages, has come to stay — if civilization is to endure. The sufferings of the past have but strengthened her, maternity has deepened her, education is broadening her — and she now knows that she must perfect herself if she would perfect the race, and leave her imprint upon immortality, through her offspring or her works.”

Winnifred Harper Cooley (1874–1967) American author and lecturer

The New Womanhood (New York, 1904) 31f.

Women, Men, Money, Children

“There was such a wonderful setting of the moon this morning, the yellow moon against little pink clouds, and the mountains a pure deep blue [viewed from his Swiss farmhouse], quite glorious, I would so have liked to paint. But it was cold, even my window was frozen, although I had kept the fire in all night.”

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

In a letter from Frauenkirch, Jan. 1919; as quoted in Expressionism, de:Wolf-Dieter Dube; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 48 Some time later Kirchner would made a colored wood-cut: 'Moonlit Winter Night' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Kirchner_-_Wintermondnacht.jpg 1916 - 1919

Mountain, Painting, Night

“It is hardly possible not to suspect the truth of this doctrine of atonement, when we consider that the general maxims to which it may be reduced, are nowhere laid down, or asserted, in the Scriptures, but others quite contrary to them.”

Joseph Priestley book An History of the Corruptions of Christianity

Part II : Opinions Relating to the Doctrine of Atonement, § I : That Christ did not die to make satisfaction for the sins of men.
An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782)

Truth

“I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He said, 'You'll come to a wall you won't be able to get through.' I said, 'Well then, I'll beat my head against that wall.' I quite literally began hitting things, and developed a music of percussion that involved noises.”

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

Quote from an interview in Observer magazine (1982), repeated on several occasions
1980s

Music, Feeling

“I venture to say quite plainly: the oppressed and the exploited have a right to rebel, because they have to reclaim their rights until they enjoy their full share in the common patrimony. The Modern School, however, has to deal with children, whom it prepares by instruction for the state of manhood, and it must not anticipate the cravings and hatreds, the adhesions and rebellions, which may be fitting sentiments in the adult. In other words, it must not seek to gather fruit until it has been produced by cultivation, nor must it attempt to implant a sense of responsibility until it has equipped the conscience with the fundamental conditions of such responsibility. Let it teach the children to be men; when they are men, they may declare themselves rebels against injustice.”

Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia (1859–1909) Spanish anarchist

The Origin and Ideals of the Modern School (1908)

Men, Children, School, Sense

“What is happening here?
Something is going on
That's not quite clear.
Somebody turn on the light,
We're gonna have a party.
It's starting tonight.

Oh, what a feeling!
When we're dancing on the ceiling.”

Lionel Richie (1949) American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer and actor

Dancing on the Ceiling, co-written with Mike Frenchik and Carlos Rios.
Song lyrics, Dancing on the Ceiling (1986)

Feeling, Light, Dance

“I quitted my seat in the House of Delegates, from a Conviction that I was no longer able to do any essential Service.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Letter to Edmund Randolph (19 October 1782)

Housing

“The expected effects of a sea-level rise typify the many consequences of a global warming. On the one hand, they are so big we literally can't understand them. If there is a significant polar melting, the Earth's center of gravity will shift, tipping the globe in such a way that the sea level might actually drop at Cape Horn and along the coast of Iceland—I read this in a recent EPA report and found that I didn't really understand what it meant to tip the Earth, through I was awed by the idea. On the other hand, the changes ultimately acquire a quite personal dimension: Should I put in a wall in front of my house? Does this taste salty to you? And, most telling of all, the human response to the problems, the utterly natural human attempt to preserve the old natural way of life in this postnatural world, creates entirely new consequences. The ocean rises; I build a wall; the marsh dies, and, with it, the fish.”

Bill McKibben book The End of Nature

Source: The End of Nature (1989), p. 117-118

Life, World, Way, Idea

“and nothing quite so least as truth
—i say though hate were why men breathe—
because my father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

34
50 Poems (1940)

Love, Men, Hate, Truth

“I've got five big years ahead of me now, and I guess I'll have five more after that. What's the use of going further along than that? I haven't even thought of quitting the game. I feel like I was just starting in to begin. 'Course baseball is different from anything else. Look at those birds sitting across the lobby. They are business men, getting 'fit' for the season, too. But they are middle-aged, and gray and in what you birds call the prime of life. I'll be 33 when my new contract ends and a lot of people are reading me out of the game already. I'm going to be a business man, too, in baseball. Experience helps you a lot in this game, just as in any other.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

As quoted in 'Have to Get More of 'Em,' Says Babe Ruth When He Hears of the Income Tax"

Life, Men, People, Age

“Of all these offenses the one that is most widely, frequently, and vehemently denounced is undoubtedly imperialism—sometimes just Western, sometimes Eastern (that is, Soviet) and Western alike. But the way this term is used in the literature of Islamic fundamentalists often suggests that it may not carry quite the same meaning for them as for its Western critics. In many of these writings the term "imperialist" is given a distinctly religious significance, being used in association, and sometimes interchangeably, with "missionary," and denoting a form of attack that includes the Crusades as well as the modern colonial empires. One also sometimes gets the impression that the offense of imperialism is not—as for Western critics—the domination by one people over another but rather the allocation of roles in this relationship. What is truly evil and unacceptable is the domination of infidels over true believers. For true believers to rule misbelievers is proper and natural, since this provides for the maintenance of the holy law, and gives the misbelievers both the opportunity and the incentive to embrace the true faith. But for misbelievers to rule over true believers is blasphemous and unnatural, since it leads to the corruption of religion and morality in society, and to the flouting or even the abrogation of God's law. This may help us to understand the current troubles in such diverse places as Ethiopian Eritrea, Indian Kashmir, Chinese Sinkiang, and Yugoslav Kossovo, in all of which Muslim populations are ruled by non-Muslim governments. It may also explain why spokesmen for the new Muslim minorities in Western Europe demand for Islam a degree of legal protection which those countries no longer give to Christianity and have never given to Judaism. Nor, of course, did the governments of the countries of origin of these Muslim spokesmen ever accord such protection to religions other than their own. In their perception, there is no contradiction in these attitudes. The true faith, based on God's final revelation, must be protected from insult and abuse; other faiths, being either false or incomplete, have no right to any such protection.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)

God, People, Faith, Religion

“We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation"…In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don't think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic. You would also be led to think that the term "civilian casualty" had not even been in the Iraqi vocabulary until March 2003…the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once.That this—his pro-American moment—was the worst Moore could possibly say of Saddam's depravity is further suggested by some astonishing falsifications. Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible…Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer…In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more—the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally…Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country…And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2004-06-21
Unfairenheit 9/11
Slate
1091-2339
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2004/06/unfairenheit_911.html: On Michael Moore
2000s, 2004

Life, War, Children, Secret

“A question arises regarding the angels who dwell with us, serve us and protect us, whether their joys are equal to those of the angels in heaven, or whether they are diminished by the fact that they protect and serve us. No, they are certainly not; for the work of the angels is the will of God, and the will of God is the work of the angels; their service to us does not hinder their joy nor their working. If God told an angel to go to a tree and pluck caterpillars off it, the angel would be quite ready to do so, and it would be his happiness, if it were the will of God.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

Sermon IV : True Hearing
Meister Eckhart’s Sermons (1909)

God, Happiness, Angels, Question

“It is the strangest problem of humanity — one too, for which the closest investigation can never quite account — to trace the progress by which innocence becomes guilt, and how those who formerly trembled to think of crime, are led on to commit that at which they once shuddered.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Problem, Thinking

“"Why is a Kennaston?" he asked himself — thus whimisically voicing a real desire to know if human beings were intended for any especial purpose. Most of us find it more comfortable, upon the whole, to stave off such queries — with a jest, a shrug, or a Scriptural quotation, as best suits personal taste; but Kennaston was "queer" enough to face the situation quite gravely.”

James Branch Cabell book The Cream of the Jest

Source: The Cream of the Jest (1917), Ch. 26 : "Epper Si Muove"

Personality

“American society has always exercised a stronger pressure on individual behavior than Western European societies; but in time of war this pressure is notched a few degrees, and starts to become quite alarming.”

Tzvetan Todorov (1939–2017) Bulgarian historian, philosopher, structuralist literary critic, sociologist and essayist

The New World Disorder: Reflections of a European (2005)

War, Behavior, Exercises, Time

“While doing justice to the intellectual power with which a few Circles have for many generations maintained their supremacy over immense multitudes of their countrymen, he believes that the facts of Flatland, speaking for themselves without comment on his part, declare that Revolutions cannot always be suppressed by slaughter, and that Nature, in sentencing the Circles to infecundity, has condemned them to ultimate failure — "and herein," he says, "I see a fulfilment of the great Law of all worlds, that while the wisdom of Man thinks it is working one thing, the wisdom of Nature constrains it to work another, and quite a different and far better thing." For the rest, he begs his readers not to suppose that every minute detail in the daily life of Flatland must needs correspond to some other detail in Spaceland; and yet he hopes that, taken as a whole, his work may prove suggestive as well as amusing, to those Spacelanders of moderate and modest minds who — speaking of that which is of the highest importance, but lies beyond experience — decline to say on the one hand, "This can never be," and on the other hand, "It must needs be precisely thus, and we know all about it."”

Edwin Abbott Abbott book Flatland

Preface to the Second and Revised Edition (1884)
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884)

Life, Wisdom, World, Justice

“As those of us know who have taken part in battle, it is one thing to manoeuvre freely when secure in the knowledge that the man behind the gun is doing his best to miss us, but it is quite another thing when that same man is doing his utmost to liquidate you.”

Frederick E. Morgan (1894–1967) British Army general

Comment to his staff officers, on the crucial distinction between intensive battle training and actual battle (19 May 1943), quoted in History of COSSAC (May 1944) http://www.history.army.mil/documents/cossac/Cossac.htm by Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force

Knowledge, Parting

“When I was quite young… I began to suspect there must be flaws in my sense of reality. It seemed to my dim sense of confusion that things often blended one into another, and the Law of Excluded Middle merely opened up a void wherein anything was possible. But I had been produced to focus on objects (things) and not on systems”

Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer

processes
"Doll Factory, Gun Factory" (1973), essay reprinted in The Maker of Dune : Insights of a Master of Science Fiction (1987), edited by Tim O'Reilly
General sources

Law, Reality, Sense

“Today no one who wishes to clean even a minimal regard for reason or evidence can espouse racist ideology as it was in its heyday, a system as comprehensive as Marxism and to some clearly equally as satisfying. However, thanks to Jensen and Eysenck and Shockley, the racist can cling to the periphery of his ideology; for example, he can provide a reasoned defence of his position on certain issues such as immigration and foreign policy. I do not wish to minimize the ground he has lost: the retreat from world history to little more than immigration quotas is a great defeat for the racist and a great source of satisfaction for all of his opponents. I am quite convinced that the refutation of racism in the light of reason is almost complete (the effort to eradicate it as a social force is a different matter and may never be fully accomplished). However, the last stand of the racist is not without importance, something I will attempt to demonstrate by giving a racist ideologue his say.”

James Robert Flynn (1934–2020) New Zealand scholar

not referring to any of the above mentioned persons
Source: Race, IQ, and Jensen (1980), p. 8

World, History, Effort, Light

“And they — what I hear, you know, talking about our president. When I hear people saying quite unthinkable things about our president, when I see our president defaced, which is defacing our country. He's the leader of our country. He's the leader of the free world. It — my heart is very heavy.”

Jon Voight (1938) American actor

Speaking about criticism of then-President George W. Bush on the April 27, 2007 edition of The O'Reilly Factor http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,268940,00.html

People, World, Heart, Country

Quotes about quit page 27

Quotes about quit
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