Quotes about readiness
page 5

Helen Oyeyemi photo
Kim Harrison photo
Allan Sherman photo
Francis Bacon photo
Mitch Albom photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo
E.M. Forster photo

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

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

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

Jeff Lindsay photo
Booker T. Washington photo
Libba Bray photo
Rick Riordan photo
Henry Miller photo
William Goldman photo
David Levithan photo
William James photo
Sylvia Day photo

“I came ready to fight Genghis Khan and I walk in on a shut-in playing the biggest Dungeons and Dragons game in history.”

Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer

Source: Sandman Slim

Cormac McCarthy photo

“Oh, Life, I am yours. Whatever it is you want of me, I am ready to give.”

William Steig (1907–2003) American cartoonist, children's illustrator and writer

Source: Dominic

Mike Tyson photo

“My life's not tragic at all. How many guys do you know who are bankrupt and just bought a $3 million house and are getting ready to get $6 million more?”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/boxing/2005-06-02-tyson-saraceno_x.htm
On himself

Roberto Clemente photo

“I was looking for an inside pitch. I don't know whether it was a fastball or not, but it came in a little inside and I was ready for it. I know it went out of here fast. Last year I hit one harder to the left field bleachers. That was a high fly ball. But this was a line drive. And I liked this hit better because it won the game.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Discussing his game-winning 7/14/61 grand slam, and contrasting it with a prodigious shot hit on 5/6/60 http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Roberto_Clemente%27s_%27Toolbox%27:_The_Club#Clemente.27s_majestic_May_6.2C_1960_blast_into_the_teeth_of_Candlestick.27s_crosswind.2C_described_by_Arnold_Hano, also at Candlestick Park; as quoted in "The Big Grand Slam: Clemente Was All Set" by Phil Berman, in The San Francisco Chronicle (Saturday, July 15, 1961), p. 26
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1961</big>

“Mathematics because of its nature and structure is peculiarly fitted for high school instruction [Gymnasiallehrfach]. Especially the higher mathematics, even if presented only in its elements, combines within itself all those qualities which are demanded of a secondary subject. It engages, it fructifies, it quickens, compels attention, is as circumspect as inventive, induces courage and self-confidence as well as modesty and submission to truth. It yields the essence and kernel of all things, is brief in form and overflows with its wealth of content. It discloses the depth and breadth of the law and spiritual element behind the surface of phenomena; it impels from point to point and carries within itself the incentive toward progress; it stimulates the artistic perception, good taste in judgment and execution, as well as the scientific comprehension of things. Mathematics, therefore, above all other subjects, makes the student lust after knowledge, fills him, as it were, with a longing to fathom the cause of things and to employ his own powers independently; it collects his mental forces and concentrates them on a single point and thus awakens the spirit of individual inquiry, self-confidence and the joy of doing; it fascinates because of the view-points which it offers and creates certainty and assurance, owing to the universal validity of its methods. Thus, both what he receives and what he himself contributes toward the proper conception and solution of a problem, combine to mature the student and to make him skillful, to lead him away from the surface of things and to exercise him in the perception of their essence. A student thus prepared thirsts after knowledge and is ready for the university and its sciences. Thus it appears, that higher mathematics is the best guide to philosophy and to the philosophic conception of the world (considered as a self-contained whole) and of one’s own being.”

Christian Heinrich von Dillmann (1829–1899) German educationist

Source: Die Mathematik die Fackelträgerin einer neuen Zeit (Stuttgart, 1889), p. 40.

Nathanael Greene photo
Arthur Sullivan photo

“We shall never know of the numbers of "mute and inglorious Miltons" who failed because the place and time were not ready for them…Was not Sullivan a jewel in the wrong setting?”

Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) English composer of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

Ralph Vaughan Williams National Music (London: Oxford University Press, 1934) p. 7
Criticism

Wendell Berry photo
William H. McNeill photo
Tony Abbott photo

“Although most Muslims utterly reject terrorism, some are all too ready to justify “death to the infidel.””

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

2015, The religion of Islam must reform (December 9, 2015)

Viktor Schauberger photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Bernard Lewis photo
Leonard Cohen photo

“If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker

Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my Lord”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"You Want It Darker" ·  Full text online http://genius.com/Leonard-cohen-you-want-it-darker-lyrics ·  YouTube audio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0nmHymgM7Y
You Want It Darker (2016)

Sinclair Lewis photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
E.E. Cummings photo

“But in the judgments they exercise they are most accurate and just, nor do they pass sentence by the votes of a court that is fewer than a hundred. And as to what is once determined by that number, it is unalterable. What they most of all honor, after God himself, is the name of their legislator [Moses], whom if any one blaspheme he is punished capitally. They also think it a good thing to obey their elders, and the major part. Accordingly, if ten of them be sitting together, no one of them will speak while the other nine are against it. They also avoid spitting in the midst of them, or on the right side. Moreover, they are stricter than any other of the Jews in resting from their labors on the seventh day; for they not only get their food ready the day before, that they may not be obliged to kindle a fire on that day, but they will not remove any vessel out of its place, nor go to stool thereon. Nay, on other days they dig a small pit, a foot deep, with a paddle (which kind of hatchet is given them when they are first admitted among them); and covering themselves round with their garment, that they may not affront the Divine rays of light, they ease themselves into that pit, after which they put the earth that was dug out again into the pit; and even this they do only in the more lonely places, which they choose out for this purpose; and although this easement of the body be natural, yet it is a rule with them to wash themselves after it, as if it were a defilement to them.”

Jewish War

Ellen G. White photo
Zia Haider Rahman photo
Ignacy Domeyko photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Dave Barry photo
Milton Friedman photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On his 75th birthday (1947), in reply to a question on whether he was afraid of death, quoted in the N. Y. Times Magazine on November 1, 1964, p. 40 according to Quote It Completely! (1998), Gerhart, Wm. S. Hein Publishing, p. 262 ISBN 1575884003
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Mason Weems photo

“Feeling that the silver chord of life is loosing, and that his spirit is ready to quit her old companion the body, he extends himself on his bed — closes his eyes for the last time, with his own hands — folds his arms decently on his breast, then breathing out "Father of mercies! take me to thyself," — he fell asleep. Swift on angels' wings the brightening saint ascended; while voices more than human were heard (in Fancy's ear) warbling through the happy regions, and hymning the great procession towards the gates of heaven. His glorious coming was seen far off, and myriads of mighty angels hastened forth, with golden harps, to welcome the honored stranger.”

Mason Weems (1759–1825) fictionalizing biographer of George Washington

Description of Washington's death in Life of Washington (1800); this fanciful account bears no relation to the report of Washington's last words by his personal secretary Tobias Lear, who wrote in his journal (14 December 1799) http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/project/exhibit/mourning/lear.html: About ten o'clk he made several attempts to speak to me before he could effect it, at length he said, — "I am just going. Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the Vault in less than three days after I am dead." I bowed assent, for I could not speak. He then looked at me again and said, "Do you understand me? I replied "Yes." "Tis well" said he.

Sri Aurobindo photo

“There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism. The first are periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny; the second are spaces of time when much labour goes to the making of a little result. It is true that the latter may prepare the former, may be the little smoke of sacrifice going up to heaven which calls down the rain of God's bounty…. Unhappy is the man or the nation which, when the divine moment arrives, is found sleeping or unprepared to use it, because the lamp has not been kept trimmed for the welcome and the ears are sealed to the call. But thrice woe to them who are strong and ready, yet waste the force or misuse the moment; for them is irreparable loss or a great destruction…. In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph. But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again; even though he seem to pass on the wings of the wind, he shall return. Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected, the incalculable, the immeasurable. Mete not the power of the Breath by thy petty instruments, but trust and go forward…. But most keep thy soul clear, even if for a while, of the clamour of the ego. Then shall a fire march before thee in the night and the storm be thy helper and thy flag shall wave on the highest height of the greatness that was to be conquered.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

1918 (The Hour of God)
India's Rebirth

Lucy Stone photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo
Mengistu Haile Mariam photo
Pierre-Auguste Renoir photo
Benjamin Franklin photo

“He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.”

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

Franklin himself calls this an "old maxim" when he repeats it at page 48 http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/autobiography/page48.htm of his autobiography.
Franklin's recognition of this effect caused it to be named after him. Wikipedia, Ben Franklin Effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect.
Misattributed

Georgia O'Keeffe photo
Mitch Albom photo
Everett Dean Martin photo

“Education aims at independence of judgment. Propaganda offers ready-made opinions for the unthinking herd.”

Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941)

Source: Are We Victims of Propaganda, Our Invisible Masters: A Debate with Edward Bernays (1929), p. 145

Carlos Drummond de Andrade photo

“When I was born, one of those twisted
angels who live in the shadows said:
"Carlos, get ready to be a misfit in life!"
(…)
My God, why have you forsaken me
if you knew that I wasn't God,
if you knew that I was weak.
World so large, world so wide,
if my name were Clyde,
it would be a rhyme but not an answer.
World so wide, world so large,
my heart's even larger.
I shouldn't tell you,
but this moon
but this brandy
make me sentimental as hell.”

Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902–1987) Brazilian poet

Quando nasci, um anjo torto
Desses que vivem na sombra
Disse: Vai Carlos! Ser gauche na vida.
(...)
Meu Deus, por que me abandonastes
se sabias que eu não era Deus,
se sabias que eu era fraco.
Mundo mundo vasto mundo,
se eu me chamasse Raimundo
seria uma rima, não seria uma solução.
Mundo mundo vasto mundo,
mais vasto é meu coração.
Eu não devia te dizer
mas essa lua
mas esse conhaque
botam a gente comovido como o diabo.
"Poema de sete faces" ["Seven-sided Poem"]
Alguma Poesia [Some Poetry] (1930)

Peace Pilgrim photo

“I deal with spiritual truth which should never be sold and need never be bought. When you are ready it will be given.”

Peace Pilgrim (1908–1981) American non-denominational spiritual teacher

As quoted in "Pushing World Peace — it's a living" by Beverly Creamer in Honolulu Advertiser (15 August 1980)

Sydney Smith photo

“You find people ready enough to do the Samaritan, without the oil and twopence.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Vol. I, p. 261
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Antonin Scalia photo

“Bork has essentially given up. I'm not ready to throw in the towel.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Asked about philosophical ally Robert Bork's urging that Congress override some Supreme Court rulings: Speech to the Anti-Defamation League http://web.archive.org/19990219131611/members.aol.com/schwenkler/scalia/nocontest.htm (May 1997).
1990s

Vladimir Mayakovsky photo

“In parade deploying
the armies of my pages,
I shall inspect
the regiments in line.
Heavy as lead,
my verses at attention stand,
ready for death
and for immortal fame.”

Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930) Russian and Soviet poet, playwright, artist and stage and film actor

"At the Top of My Voice" (1929-30); translation from Patricia Blake (ed.) The Bedbug and Selected Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975) p. 227

Gore Vidal photo
Arthur Ponsonby photo
Democritus photo
Yves Klein photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“The art and mystery of banks… is established on the principle that 'private debts are a public blessing.' That the evidences of those private debts, called bank notes, become active capital, and aliment the whole commerce, manufactures, and agriculture of the United States. Here are a set of people, for instance, who have bestowed on us the great blessing of running in our debt about two hundred millions of dollars, without our knowing who they are, where they are, or what property they have to pay this debt when called on; nay, who have made us so sensible of the blessings of letting them run in our debt, that we have exempted them by law from the repayment of these debts beyond a give proportion (generally estimated at one-third). And to fill up the measure of blessing, instead of paying, they receive an interest on what they owe from those to whom they owe; for all the notes, or evidences of what they owe, which we see in circulation, have been lent to somebody on an interest which is levied again on us through the medium of commerce. And they are so ready still to deal out their liberalities to us, that they are now willing to let themselves run in our debt ninety millions more, on our paying them the same premium of six or eight per cent interest, and on the same legal exemption from the repayment of more than thirty millions of the debt, when it shall be called for.”

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

ME 13:420
1810s, Letters to John Wayles Eppes (1813)

Ingmar Bergman photo
Joseph Beuys photo

“He [ Marcel Duchamp ] entered this object [the 'Urinal' ready-made] into the museum and noticed that its transportation from one place to another made it into art. But he failed to draw the clear and simple conclusion that every man is an artist.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

as quoted in Joseph Beuys and the Celtic Wor(l)d: A Language of Healing, by Victoria Walters, LIT Verlag Münster, 2012, p. 206
Quotes after 1984, posthumous published

Joseph Gurney Cannon photo
Philo photo
Enoch Powell photo

“Too often today people are ready to tell us: "This is not possible, that is not possible." I say: whatever the true interest of our country calls for is always possible.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Conservative Party conference, 1968 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0t3BTAF0ns
1960s

James Anthony Froude photo
Narendra Modi photo
Rihanna photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“The World is divided into armed camps ready to commit genocide just because we can't agree on whose fairy tales to believe. In the end, Religion will kill us all.”

Ed Krebs (1951) American photographer and musician

Had Enough Religious Bullshit http://www.edkrebs.com/herb/, Ed Krebs' site.

John Gray photo
William Fitzsimmons photo

“Ready or not, I'm not what you wanted, I'm what you got.”

William Fitzsimmons (1978) American musician

Until When We Are Ghosts (2006), When I Come Home

Orde Charles Wingate photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo

“Jesus man! You don't look for acid! Acid finds you when it thinks you're ready.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

1970s, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 (1973)

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Ian Holloway photo

“If you're a burglar, it's no good poncing about outside somebody's house, looking good with your swag bag ready. Just get in there, burgle them and come out. I don't advocate that obviously, it's just an analogy.”

Ian Holloway (1963) English association football player and manager

Sport quotes of the week, Charles, Chris, 2009-10-14, BBC Spot, 2009-10-14, Quotez http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/funny_old_game/8302454.stm,
Sourced quotes

Richard Cobden photo
John Stuart Mill photo
Henry Clay Trumbull photo

“An over-readiness to criticise or to depreciate a minister of Christ is proof of a lack of devotion to Christ.”

Henry Clay Trumbull (1830–1903) Union Army chaplain

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 168.

Menachem Mendel Schneerson photo

“Moshiach is ready to come now, we all must only do something additional in the realm of goodness and kindness.”

Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994) Hasidic rabbi

In response to CNN reporter, Chabad.org http://www.chabad.org/therebbe/livingtorah/player_cdo/aid/490071/jewish/Acts-of-Goodness-and-Kindness.htm

Eric Hoffer photo

“Marxism has only killed 100 million people, so naturally at the new voice of the mainstream center Democratic Party, they’re ready to give it another chance.”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

August 26, 2007 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=26823_Daily_Kos_Diary-_Mainstream_Marxism&only

Elliott Smith photo

“I think the music business will eventually crush me, but I [smiles]… I'm ready.”

Elliott Smith (1969–2003) American singer-songwriter

in Strange Parallel (1998).

Clement Attlee photo
Marcel Duchamp photo

“Now, if you [his sister, Suzanne Duchamp ] have been up to my place, you will have seen, in the studio, [his former studio in France, probably in Paris] a 'Bicycle Wheel' and a 'Bottle Rack'. [both art-works became later famous ready-mades of Duchamp] – I bought this as a ready-made sculpture [sculpture tout faite]. And I h have a plan concerning this so-called bottle rack. Listen to this. Here in N. Y., I have bought various objects in the same taste and I treat them as 'ready-mades'. You know enough English to understand the meaning of 'ready-made' [tour fait] that I give these objects. – I sign them and think of an inscription for them in English. I'll give you a few examples. I have, for example, a large snow shovel on which I have inscribed at the bottom: In advance of the broken arm, French translation: 'En avance dus bras cassé' – (Don't tear your hair out) trying to understand this in the Romantic or impressionist or Cubist sense – it has nothing to do with all that. Another 'readymade' is called: Emergency in favour of twice possible French translation: Danger \Crise \en favour de 2 fois. This long preamble just to say: Take this bottle rack for yourself. I'm making it a 'readymade' remotely. You are to inscribe it at the bottom and on the inside of the bottom circle, in small letters painted with a brush in oil, silver white colour, with an inscription which I will give you herewith, and then sign it, in the same handwriting, as follows: [after] Marcel Duchamp.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

long quote from Duchamp's letter to his sister Suzanne Duchamp, New York, c. 15 Jan. 1916; as quoted in The Duchamp Book, ed. Gavin Parkinson, Tate Publishing, London 2008 pp. 157-158
1915 - 1925

Jair Bolsonaro photo
William Luther Pierce photo

“If we're going to consider failure to comply with UN directives a good reason for wrecking a country with cruise missiles, hey, I can think of a country in the Middle East which is in violation of a lot more UN directives than Iraq is. Israel has consistently thumbed its nose at UN directives, and no one in Washington has ever told Israel, "Comply or get hit." Let's understand one fundamental fact. This crusade against Iraq isn't about the United Nations or international security or stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It's about making the Middle East safe for Israel to continue bullying its neighbors and stealing from them. Every other explanation is lies and hypocrisy. And we really can expect a bigger dose of lies and hypocrisy than usual as the warmongers work to get this war against Iraq started. The media bosses will trot more generals and politicians in front of the TV cameras and have them bluster patriotically about how we're not going to let Saddam Hussein get away with it any longer, by god, and they'll show groups of military personnel cheering when they're told that they're being shipped out to the Persian Gulf to kick Saddam Hussein's behind and keep him from getting away with whatever it is he's getting away with, which mainly seems to be running his country the way he wants to instead of the way the United Nations tells him. They will work overtime at convincing the couch potatoes and the mindless yahoos who like to wave flags and shout patriotic slogans that destroying Iraq really is an act of American patriotism. And as long as the number of Americans killed in a Jewish war against Iraq remains small, the flag-waving yahoos and the bought politicians ought to be able to drown out any dissent from Americans like me who believe that we don't have any reasonable justification for waging such a war. And keeping casualties small ought to be easy, so long as it remains strictly a high-tech war, with us launching missiles against defenseless targets from many miles away. Of course, sometimes wars get out of hand, and unexpected things happen. If the Jews manage to get Iran involved in the war also -- and that's what they really want to do, what they really need to do -- then I think we stand a pretty good chance of seeing some major terrorist activity in the United States. I know that if I were Osama bin Laden, I'd have been spending my time getting ready for just such a development ever since Bill Clinton blew up that pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. I'd be putting my teams into place in the United States, assembling materials, choosing targets, and waiting for the Jews to provide justification for me to begin killing Americans on a significant scale. Of course, whether Osama bin Laden is as resourceful and as capable as he's said to be remains to be seen. Personally, I have very little faith in the ability of these flea-bitten Muslims to get things done. But we'll see.”

William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) American white nationalist

Why War? (November 21, 1998) http://web.archive.org/web/20070324011124/http://www.natvan.com/pub/1998/112198.txt, American Dissident Voices Broadcast of November 21, 1998 http://archive.org/details/DrWilliamPierceAudioArchive308RadioBroadcasts.
1990s, 1990

“I don’t expect them to build a big stone monument to me; that’s not my goal in life. I’d like to think that if I did anything extraordinary, it was the work that we did in getting the corporation ready for the 21st century.”

Roger Smith (executive) (1925–2007) CEO

Smith cited in: Micheline Maynard (2007) " Roger B. Smith, 82, Ex-Chief of G.M., Dies http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/01/business/01smith.html" in The New York Times December 1, 2007.