Quotes about real (5919 quotes, page 46)

“All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

No. 1, volume v, p. 286
Letters On a Regicide Peace (1796)

Youth , History , Nature

“You have a very strange face," she said. "You're not really ugly." "Number four shipping clerk, working his way up." "Have you ever been in love?" "Love is for real people." "You sound real." "I dislike real people." "You dislike them?" "I hate them." We drank some more, not saying much. It continued to snow. Gertrude turned her head and stared into the crowd of people. Then she looked at me. "Isn't he handsome?" "Who?" "That soldier over there. He's sitting alone. He sits so straight. And he's got all his medals on.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

"Come on, let's get out of here."
Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 27

Love , Hate , People , Way

“How sweet! You still believe in death… that's just so… quaint. Well, sorry to pop your death bubble, but there's no such thing. So make the best of things. Any real belief in death is just wishful thinking. Don't waste good drugs on killing yourself. Share them with friends and have a party. Or send them to me.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

"You Ask The Questions," The Independent Review (2004-03-25)

Death , Thinking

“Although you may spend your life killing,
You will not exhaust all your foes.
But if you quell your own anger,
your real enemy will be slain.”

Nagarjuna (150–250) Indian philosopher

Nagarjuna & Sakya Pandita. (1977). Elegant sayings. Cazadero, California: Dharma Publishing.

Life , Anger

“We prove what we want to prove, and the real difficulty is to know what we want to prove.”

Alain (1868–1951) French philosopher

On prouve tout ce qu'on veut, et la vraie difficulté est de savoir ce qu'on veut prouver.
Système des Beaux-Arts (1920), as quoted in The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time (In Two Lines or Less) by John M. Shanahan, p. 34
Variant translation: We prove anything we want to prove, and the real difficulty is to know what we want to prove.

“Here’s my definition of a hero. A hero is an ordinary person given being and action by something bigger than themselves. One thing I’m sure about is I’m real ordinary. Yet I’ve had the chance to touch the lives of a lotta people.”

Werner Erhard (1935) Critical Thinker and Author

Interview with The Financial Times — [Lucy Kellaway, w:Lucy Kellaway, Lunch with the FT: Werner Erhard, The Financial Times, April 28, 2012, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/feb214a8-8f88-11e1-98b1-00144feab49a.html#axzz1v4NTTdmJ]

People , Chance , Personality

“How can one understand the inner life of a character, real or fictional, without knowing the state of her finances?”

Ian McEwan book Sweet Tooth

Page 42.
Sweet Tooth (2012)

Life , Understanding

“The real test of friendship is: can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?”

Eugene Kennedy (1928–2015) American psychologist

Eugene Kennedy, cited in: Kathy Wagoner (2002) The Promise of Friendship. p. 284

Life , Friendship , Personality , Deep

“The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape our history.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Eight Little Piggies

Source: Eight Little Piggies (1993) "Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness", p. 282

History , Nature

“Those who are placed in positions which demand the surrender of personality, which insist on strict conformity to definite political policies and opinions, must deteriorate, must become mechanical, must lose all capacity to give anything really vital. The world is full of such unfortunate cripples. Their dream is to “arrive,” no matter at what cost. If only we would stop to consider what it means to “arrive,” we would pity the unfortunate victim. Instead of that, we look to the artist, the poet, the writer, the dramatist and thinker who have “arrived,” as the final authority on all matters, whereas in reality their “arrival” is synonymous with mediocrity, with the denial and betrayal of what might in the beginning have meant something real and ideal. The “arrived” artists are dead souls upon the intellectual horizon. The uncompromising and daring spirits never “arrive.” Their life represents an endless battle with the stupidity and the dullness of their time. They must remain what Nietzsche calls “untimely,” because everything that strives for new form, new expression or new values, is always doomed to be untimely.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

Intellectual Proletarians (1914)

Life , Stupidity , World , Dreams

“I feel no doubt whatever that the parish laws of England have contributed to raise the price of provisions and to lower the real price of labour.”

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) British political economist

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter V, paragraph 13, lines 1-3

Law , Feeling

“We cannot judge either of the feelings or of the characters of men with perfect accuracy from their actions or their appearance in public; it is from their careless conversations, their half-finished sentences, that we may hope with the greatest probability of success to discover their real characters.”

Maria Edgeworth book Castle Rackrent

Castle Rackrent (1800), Preface; Tales and Novels, vol. 1, p. 9.

Men , Hope , Feeling , Appearance

“There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.”

Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) English painter, specialising in portraits

Quoted in Time magazine December 8, 1930
Other

Thinking

“This is continuity, you travel, perhaps in your mind, a paper world real, God reeling up and down landscapes and buildings, knocks down, opens new roads, doesn’t like it, changes again, but there isn’t a seam, His world is onefold, and you perceive neither seam nor contradiction, continuity only.”

Dimitris Lyacos (1966) Greek writer

Source: Poena Damni Z213: Exit, Shoestring Press, 2010.

God , World , Travel , Change

“In the act of creating, people argue. They have heated dialogue. They get upset! Without real exchange, you can’t create knowledge. Knowledge creation is a human activity”

Ikujiro Nonaka (1935) Japanese business theorist

"The Practical Wisdom of Ikujiro Nonaka," 2008

People , Knowledge

“There's no record industry, and so musicians I know, because I get mail from young musicians, I mean, they're really just struggling to survive, because they're not gonna get a record contract! So what are they doing? To survive? Like I did? I mean, okay I drove trucks, and sold caviar and repaired instruments just to survive. But in the end, you know, I'm in the studio, you know, recording rock music, pop music, whatever! Whatever gives me money to put in my, you know, food in my mouth. And so there's a lot of great musicians today, they're just looking for a gig! And what are the gigs that are going around? The gigs with pop bands or with smooth jazz, funky jazz, you know, a lot of this kind of cliched music. I'm sorry to criticize it like that, but I grew up with Tony (Williams) and you know Miles (Davis), (John) Coltrane, and real things, where there's blood all over the floor, blood all over the stage, that's what the passion's all about.”

John McLaughlin (1942) guitarist, founder of the Mahavishnu Orchestra

On record industry, as quoted in "John McLaughlin: State of the Musical Arts", by The Snapshots Foundation; directed by Jonathan Bewley, YouTube, Jul 11, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utqp7ECKUl0

Money , Food , Music , Passion

“There can be no question of selecting in any direction, but of a penetrating the whole cosmic law of rhythms, forces and material that are the real world, from the ugliest to the most beautiful, everything that has character and expression, from the crudest and most brutal to the gentlest and most delicate; everything that speaks to us in its capacity as life. From this it follows that one must know all in order to be able to express all. It is the abolition of the aesthetic principle. We are not disillusioned because we have no illusions; we have never had any. What we have and what is our strength, is our joy in life; our interest in life, in all its amoral aspects. That is also the basis of our contemporary art. We do not even know the laws of aesthetics. That old idea of selection according to the beauty-principle Beautiful — Ugly, like to ethical Noble — Sinful, is dead for us, for whom the beautiful is also ugly and everything ugly is endowed with beauty. Behind the comedy and the tragedy we find only life's dramas uniting both; not in noble heroes and false villains, but people.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

Variant translations:
What we possess and what gives us strength is our joy in life, our interest in life in all its amoral facets. This is also the foundation for today's art. We do not even know the aesthetic laws.
We are not disillusioned because we have no illusions; we have never had any. What we have, and what constitutes our strength, is our joy in life, in all of its moral and amoral manifestations.
1940 - 1948, Intimate Banalities' (1941)

Life , People , World , Law

“I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Source: Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p. 114

Life , Children , Truth , Family

“The other thing that's different about the real world [compared to high school] is that it's much larger. In a large enough pool, even the smallest minorities can achieve a critical mass if they clump together.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"Why Nerds are Unpopular," February 2003

World , School

“I've sued my manager for sexual harassment. And it's real hard, and a big strain on me. Because he hasn't done anything.”

Sarah Silverman (1970) American comedian and actress

Jesus Is Magic (2005)

“Powell described British membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) as "if there be a conflict between the call of country and that of party, the call of country must come first" and went on to say: Curiously, it so happens that the question 'Who governs Britain?' which at the moment is being frivolously posed, might be taken, in real earnest, as the title of what I have to say. This is the first and last election at which the British people will be given the opportunity to decide whether their country is to remain a democratic nation, governed by the will of its own electorate expressed in its own Parliament, or whether it will become one province in a new European superstate under institutions which know nothing of the political rights and liberties that we have so long taken for granted.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to an audience of around 1,500 people on 23 February 1974 about British membership of the EEC. (Collings, Rex, ed. (1991), Reflections of a Statesman: The Writings and Speeches of Enoch Powell, P. 454).
1970s

People , Communication , Question , Country

“The critical sense is so far from frequent that it is absolutely rare, and the possession of the cluster of qualities that minister to it is one of the highest distinctions… In this light one sees the critic as the real helper of the artist, a torchbearing outrider, the interpreter, the brother… Just in proportion as he is sentient and restless, just in proportion as he reacts and reciprocates and penetrates, is the critic a valuable instrument.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

Criticism.

Sense , Light

“To sum up: numbers appear to represent both an attribute of matter and the unconscious foundation of our mental process. For this reason, number forms, according to Jung, that particular element that unites the realms of matter and psyche. It is “real” in a double sense, as an archetypal image and as a qualitative manifestation in the realm of outer-world experience.”

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

Source: Number and Time (1974), p. .52

World , Sense , Appearance

“No people in any region would remain neglected... development of each and every person is important for the real and balanced development of the country.”

Sheikh Hasina (1947) Prime Minister of Bangladesh

During a prees conference while she was awarding scholarship among meritorious students of minor ethnic communities of the plain land at Prime Minister's Office (17 May 2017). http://www.thedailystar.net/country-bangladesh-prime-minister-sheikh-hasina-says-no-one-would-remain-neglected-1406587

People , Personality , Country

“Little kids are that way; they feel if their parents aren't watching what they do then what they do isn't real.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle (1962)

Way , Feeling , Parent

“Truth is a rock, and on that rock faith plants its foot, and feels secure. But even on the rock you cannot live long without an atmosphere, and the believer's atmosphere is love. That atmosphere, is viewless, invisible, often forgotten; still it is real, and it is vital. " The words that I speak are spirit," says the Saviour. Over and above the resting place which weary spirits have found at His feet, which guilty consciences have found in His arms, there is an afflatus gone forth from those words of His, which to inhale and be surrounded with is like entering heaven's vestibule.”

James Hamilton (1814–1867) Scottish minister and a prolific author of religious tracts

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 92.

Love , Truth , Faith , Feeling

“When we were first playing, even though it was derivative, playing music was the best, there was nothing better. And then by the second album (Freak Show) we were like, playing music makes me angry, and by the third album (Neon Ballroom) I was like, I need to play music cos life sucks. And now all of a sudden there's this really youthful enthusiasm in the band, everyone around us, there's this real positivity and everyone's vibing off the music.”

Daniel Johns (1979) Australian musician

Kerrang! magazine, April 2002
Interviews

Life , Youth , Music

“And now to my socialist friends who are here present: I have said that Jesus wanted what you want, that he wanted to help those who are least, that he wanted to establish the kingdom of God upon this earth, that he wanted to abolish self-seeking property, that he wanted to make persons into comrades. Your concerns are in line with the concerns of Jesus. Real socialism is real Christianity in our time.”

Karl Barth (1886–1968) Swiss Protestant theologian

Source: "Jesus Christ and the Movement for Social Justice" (1911), p. 36

God , Time , Help , Personality

“The pure normative standpoint that Kant’s ethics tries to occupy, a standpoint in which we consider only the normatively relevant features of a possible world, abstracting strictly from the real world and the empirical accidents of concrete situations, is an expression of what Dewey called “the quest for certainty.” In an insecure world, weak humans struggle convulsively to reach some kind of stability; the a priori is an overcompensation in thought for experienced human weakness. This is one of the origins of Kant’s notorious rigidity, his authoritarian devotion to “principles,” and his tendency to promote local habits of thought to constituents of the absolute framework in which alone (purportedly) any coherent experience was possible; thus, Euclidean geometry is declared the a priori condition of human experience, and sadistic remnants of Puritanism become demands of pure practical reason. Classical liberalism rejected Kant’s practical philosophy, but perhaps this is not enough. Perhaps one should also reject the very idea of a pure normative standpoint.”

Raymond Geuss (1946) British philosopher

“Liberalism and its Discontents,” pp. 20-21.
Outside Ethics (2005)

World , Idea

“Cinema has evolved in two paths. One is spectacle. Like the phantasmagoria, its goal is the creation of a total substitute sensory world. The other is peep show, which claims for its realm both the erotic and the untampered observance of real life, and imitates the keyhole or voyeur's window without need of color, noise, grandeur.”

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

The Lords and the New Creatures: Poems (1969), The Lords: Notes on Vision

Life , World , Color

“At any rate, it would detract sadly from the richness of the game if deduction of character from a player's style was a forbidden pursuit, for undoubtedly the main reason why cricketers are remembered for years, for decades, after the heroes of other sports are forgotten is that they set the impress of character, apart from technical batting or bowling, on the minds of those who watched them, and whether that cricket-character falsely represented the real man is, in the last analysis, unimportant.”

Dudley Carew (1903–1981) English journalist, writer, poet and film critic

To the Wicket (1946)

Game , Sport , Falseness

“The artist in realizing his own individuality reveals potentialities hitherto unrealized. The revelation is the inspiration of other individuals to make the potentialities real, for it is not sheer revolt against things as they are which stirs human endeavor to its depth, but vision of what might be and is not. Subordination of the artists to any special cause no matter how worthy does violence not only to the artist but to the living source of a new and better future.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Time and Individuality (1940)

Future

“The socialist system of society should only be, and can only be, an historical product, born out of the school of its own experiences, born in the course of its realization, as a result of the developments of living history, which – just like organic nature of which, in the last analysis, it forms a part – has the fine habit of always producing along with any real social need the means to its satisfaction, along with the task simultaneously the solution. However, if such is the case, then it is clear that socialism by its very nature cannot be decreed or introduced by ukase. It has as its prerequisite a number of measures of force – against property, etc. The negative, the tearing down, can be decreed; the building up, the positive, cannot. New Territory. A thousand problems. Only experience is capable of correcting and opening new ways.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Source: The Russian Revolution (1918), Chapter Six, "The Problem of Dictatorship"

School , Way , History , Nature

“Barren of events, rich in pretensions my earthly life. Obscurity my real name. Wholly unto myself I exist. I wrap no soul in my embrace. No mentor worthy of my calibre have I. I am all alone between failure and frustration. I am the red thread between nothingness and Eternity.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

"Between Nothingness and Eternity", p. 14
My Flute (1972)

Life , Soul , Failure

“If each member of society can be induced or impelled to do his allotted task by associating it with some motive that appears to him adequate, then he need never know how he is contributing to the real end, and need not even be aware of the end at all. It is this problem of organization that we shall call the Economic Problem. It is in fact the real subject matter of political economy.”

Ralph George Hawtrey (1879–1975) British economist

Source: The Economic Problem (1925), Chapter I, "The Problem Profounded", p. 3.

Motivation , Problem , Appearance

“People think there's some real subversive thing playing against whoever it is; a lot of it is just people who want to go along and get along. And they also want to make money. And the bottom line is, they're going to put out as much stuff as they can — stupid, banal stuff that makes money.”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

The Advocate interview (2005)

Money , People , Stupidity , Thinking

“For the first time in my life, I took part in a real battle between men. The dead did not come to life again, the vanquished fled in disorder; every thrust of my lance helped save Carmona. That day, I would have died with a smile on my lips, certain of having contributed to a triumphant future for my city.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Source: All Men are Mortal (1946), p. 73

Life , Men , Smile , Time

“Where is the real? All appearance are deceitful, the visible surface is deceptive. I look at my hand... It is nerves, muscles, bones. Let us go deeper: it is molecules and acids. Further still: it is an impalpable waltz of electrons and neutrons. Further still: an immaterial nebula. Who can prove that my hand exists?”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Source: Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1961 - 1970, Diary of a Genius (1964), pp. 133-134 - (VSD)

Appearance

“To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles. The real arena is corrupt and bloody. Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.”

Saul D. Alinsky (1909–1972) American community organizer and writer

Source: Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971), p. 24–25

Life , Fear , Learning , Time

“I want to thank Bernie Sanders. Bernie, your campaign inspired millions of Americans, particularly the young people who threw their hearts and souls into our primary. You've put economic and social justice issues front and center, where they belong. And to all of your supporters here and around the country: I want you to know, I've heard you. Your cause is our cause. Our country needs your ideas, energy, and passion. That's the only way we can turn our progressive platform into real change for America. We wrote it together – now let's go out there and make it happen together.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), (July 28, 2016)

People , Justice , Way , Soul

“The result is a horrible mess of a movie, without shape, trajectory or purpose — a one joke movie, if it had one joke. The two characters wander witlessly past the bizarre backdrops of Las Vegas (some real, some hallucinated, all interchangeable) while zonked out of their minds. Humor depends on attitude. Beyond a certain point, you don't have an attitude, you simply inhabit a state. I've heard a lot of funny jokes about drunks and druggies, but these guys are stoned beyond comprehension, to the point where most of their dialog could be paraphrased as "eh?"… As for Depp, what was he thinking he made this movie? He was once in trouble for trashing a New York hotel room, just like the heroes of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. What was that? Research? After River Phoenix died of an overdose outside Depp's club, you wouldn't think Depp would see much humor in this story — but then, of course, there *isn't* much humor in this story.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-1998 of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (22 May 1998)
Reviews, One-star reviews

Fear , Guy , Thinking , Past

“I don’t hate God. Some people say it’s impossible to hate a fictional character, but I hated the wicked step-mother in Disney’s Cinderella. Of course that’s because I knew people like her. Even though God is the most objectionable character in all fiction, he’s not real enough to hate. So it’s not that I hate God; it’s that I hate lies, and that’s what your god is made of.
If your god was real, you’d be able to convince me. In fact, he wouldn’t need you. I’d already know. However you are demonstrably wrong on everything you’ve said so far. Whether I can convince you of that depends only on whether you’re reasonably honest.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Correspondence with a Creationist http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2017/06/06/correspondence-with-a-creationist/ (June 6, 2017)

God , Hate , People , Dependency

“[A] paradox arises at the level of the subject's relationship to the community to which he belongs: the situation of the forced choice consists in the fact that the subject must freely choose the community to which he already belongs, independent of his choice - he must choose what is already given to him… The subject who thinks he can avoid this paradox and really have a free choice is a psychotic subject, one who retains a kind of distance from the symbolic order - who is not really caught in the signifying network. The totalitarian subject is closer to this psychotic position: the proof would be the status of the enemy in totalitarian distance (the Jew in Fascism, the traitor in Stalinism) - precisely the subject supposed to have made a free choice and to have freely chosen the wrong side. This is also the basic paradox of love: not only of one's country, but also of a woman or a man. If I am directly ordered to love a woman, it is clear that this does not work: in a way, love must be free. But on the other hand, if I proceed as if I really have a free choice, if I start to look around and say to myself 'Let's choose which of these women I will fall in love with,' it is clear that this also does not work, that it is not real love. The paradox of love is that it is a free choice, but a choice which never arrives in the present - it is always already made …I can only state retroactively that I've already chosen … [Stated by Kant], 'Wickedness does not simply depend upon circumstances but is an integral part of his eternal nature.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

In other words, wickedness appears to be something which is irreducibly given: the person in question can never change it, outgrow it via his ultimate moral development.
186-187
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Love , Women , Way , Communication

“We, the Poles, do not understand war as a symbol but as a real fight.”

Wladyslaw Sikorski (1881–1943) Polish military and political leader

in World of Tanks: 1 Polski Odrodzony Batalion Pancerny im. gen. Sikorskiego http://worldoftanks.eu/community/clans/500019796-1POBP/ and Cytatybaza: Władysław Sikorski http://cytatybaza.pl/autorzy/wladyslaw-sikorski.html
Original: My Polacy rozumiemy wojnę nie jak symbol, lecz jako prawdziwą walkę.

War , Understanding , Fight

“The ideal of having a real job that you risk your soul in and make good or be damned, belongs to the heroic age of capitalist enterprise, imbued with self-righteous beliefs about hard work, thrift, and public morals. Such an ideal might still have been mentioned in public fifty years ago; in our era of risk-insured semimonopolies and advertised vices it would be met with a ghastly stillness.”

Paul Goodman book Growing Up Absurd

Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), pp. 36-37.

Age , Soul

“The essential of a real picture is that the things which occur in it occur to him in his peculiarly personal fashion.... the idea of modernity is but a new attachment of things universal – a fresh relationship to the courses of the sun and to the living swing of the earth – a new fire of affection for the living essence present everywhere.”

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist

statement for catalogue of 1914 exhibition at 291, reprinted in On art, p. 62; as quoted in Marsden Hartley, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press, 1988, New York p. 49
1908 - 1920

Idea , Fashion , Universe , Sun

“I can't make real-life workplaces safer and more fair for women just by showing them with briefcases or crossbows. But I can try to grant my characters the quirky gift of humanity — whether they're adjudicating torts or dishing tortes or saving the world. And hope the little girls watching do the rest.”

Jane Espenson (1964) American television writer and producer

How to Succeed at Vampire Slaying and Keep Your Soul (2005)

Life , Women , World , Hope

“Consequences. In real life, these ramifications emanate from every action like ripples from a stone thrown into a pond. Often in movies, especially those that feature characters who don't play by the rules, such penalties are suspended. However, in Christopher Nolan's Batman universe, decisions and actions have consequences. The Dark Knight, arguably the moodiest and most adult superhero motion picture ever to reach the screen, illustrates this lesson in ways that are startling and painful. This is a tough, uncompromising motion picture — one that defies the common notions of what is expected from a "superhero" film. While there are plenty of action sequences and instances of derring-do, The Dark Knight's subtext has a tragic underpinning that would intrigue Shakespeare or the Greeks. It's about power and impotence, sanity and madness, image and reality, selfishness and sacrifice, and — yes — consequences.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1235 of The Dark Knight (2008).
Four star reviews

Life , Pain , Penalty , Way

“Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?”

Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States

Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (Monday, 9 June 1788), as contained in The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3, ed. Jonathan Elliot, published by the editor (1836), pp. 168-169
1780s

“The idea underlying such endless discussion and dreaming about the physical act is that sexual expertise confers worldliness and is therefore part of becoming an affirmed individual. This is a curious suggestion… Sex is many things — a need, a desire, an emotion, a release — but it has nothing to do with worldly sophistication, character building or even existential action. Sex, in general, is more of an obstacle than anything else for those who wish to free themselves and act as individuals… [W]e aren't dealing with a successful affirmation of responsible individualism in the real world. We are creating private dreams which compensate for the fracturing of the individual and the castration of his or her power in public life.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

Voltaire's Bastards (1992)

Life , World , Dreams , Sex

“It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in providence, than to see their real import or value.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Lectures on the Philosophy of History

Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 1

“The Democratic power elite on some level feels delegitimized by its working-class, black and female constituencies. What it wants are the "legitimate" votes of suburban, white, middle-class, affluent males. Even liberal voters and organizations tend on some tacit level to accept the idea that they are not the "real" Americans the Democrats must pursue.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"The Democrats and Left Masochism", New Politics, Vol. 8, No. 3, issue #31 (Summer 2001) http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue31/willis31.htm

Feeling , Idea

“What people are desperate for, not just in Virginia but in this country, are people who will have a positive vision, who will actually speak to the issues that truly matter–the issues that are real issues in Virginia right now–like real gang violence, public safety, the issue of protecting history in Virginia with our monuments, some of the things that in our race in Virginia, like the economy and jobs, these are the things that have defined these races. Yet the Democrats won’t talk about that because they don’t have solutions, and they don’t want to.”

Jill Vogel (1970) American politician

Jill Vogel: VA Dems Focused on Division over Issues Because ‘They Don’t Have Solutions’ http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2017/11/06/vogel-va-dems-focused-division-issues-dont-have-solutions/ (November 6, 2017)

People , History , Country

“After meditating deeply on this topic, it occurred to me that light, upon passing from one medium to another, has to make a choice, whether to follow the path of shortest distance (the straight line) or the path of least time. But why should it prefer time over space? Light cannot travel both paths at once, yet how does it decide to take one path over another? Rather than taking either of these paths per se, light takes the path that offers a real advantage: light takes the path that minimizes its action.”

Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters

Accord de différentes loix de la nature qui avoient jusqu’ici paru incompatibles (1744)

Travel , Light , Time

“I do not have a comic or tragic period in any real sense. I have always painted dark pictures; always some light pictures. I will probably go on doing so... Orchestral. My work in its entirety is like a symphony in which each painting has its part.”

Clyfford Still (1904–1980) American artist

Gallery Notes, Allbright-Knox Art Gallery, Vol. 24 summer 1961 pp. 9-14; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 197
1960s

Sense , Light , Parting , Painting

“Some may think that to affirm dialogue--the encounter of women and men in the world in order to transform the world--is naively and subjectively idealistic. There is nothing, however, more real or concrete than people in the world and with the world, than humans with other humans.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 4

Women , Men , People , World

“He [the Dalai Lama] asked me for my participation and I rejected the plan to make a kind of sculpture there in this old way, to make in a kind of special place this special modern sculpture. I told him that my idea would be this time to plant seven thousand oaks in Kassel, seven thousand trees. And to mark every tree with a little stone, so that everybody after three, two, five or six hundred years can still see that in 1982 there was an activity. After the radical destruction of the forests here in Germany for all this technological nonsense, that there was an impulse that came in the same time, to plant seven thousand oaks. This is such a kind of activity during the Documenta [in Kassel], that has to do with the 'Documenta', but is a real other thing in the conventional understanding of art.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

Source: 1980's, Interview with Louwrien Wijers, 1981, p. 185 - Beuys' statement on planting seven thousand oaks in Kassel, in 'Joseph Beuys and the Dalai Lama'

Art , Way , Idea , Understanding

“Life seems to be an experience in ascending and descending. You think you're beginning to live for a single aim — for self-development, or the discovery of cosmic truths — when all you're really doing is to move from place to place as if devoted primarily to real estate.”

Margaret Caroline Anderson (1886–1973) American magazine editor

The Fiery Fountains (1951), part 1.

Life , Truth , Thinking

“The source of totalitarianism is a dogmatic attachment to the official word: the lack of laughter, of ironic detachment. An excessive commitment to Good may in itself become the greatest Evil: real Evil is any kind of fanatical dogmatism, especially exerted in the name of supreme Good… Consider only Mozart's Don Giovanni at the end of the opera, when he is confronted with the following choice: if he confesses his sins, he can still achieve salvation; if he persists, he will be damned forever. From this viewpoint of the pleasure principle, the proper thing to do would be to renounce his past, but he does not, he persists in his Evil, although he knows that by persisting he will be damned forever. Paradoxically, with his final choice of Evil, he acquires the status of an ethical hero - that is, of someone who is guided by fundamental principles beyond the pleasure principle and not just by the search for pleasure or material gain.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

23
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Pleasure , Search , Laughter , Evil

“Quite a few people, you know, maybe want to know a bit more about the real Trinny and Susannah. So we just thought it'd be nice to do it, in a way that's not too intrusive with us.”

Trinny Woodall (1964) English fashion advisor and designer, television presenter and author

Regarding the new Trinny and Susannah mockumentary Trinny and Susannah What They Did Next; as quoted in "The Short Goodbye" produced by t5m http://www.trinnyandsusannahwhattheydidnext.com/episode-1/ (June 2010)

People , Way

“He said: "If I thought more of myself?"
"You wouldn't have much difficulty in finding it," she answered. "Let's walk."
He didn't understand the first phrase, but he turned and went by her side, silent while he heard the words. Much difficulty in finding what? in finding it? the it that could be found if he thought of himself more; that was what he had said or she had said, whichever had said that the thing was to be found, as if Adela had said it, Adela in her real self, by no means the self that went with Hugh; no, but the true, the true Adela who was apart and his; for that was the difficulty all the while, that she was truly his, and wouldn't be, but if he thought more of her truly being, and not of her being untruly away, on whatever way, for the way that went away was not the way she truly went, but if they did away with the way she went away, then Hugh could be untrue and she true, then he would know themselves, two, true and two, on the way he was going, and the peace in himself, and the scent of her in him, and the her, meant for him, in him; that was the she he knew, and he must think the more of himself.”

Charles Williams book Descent into Hell

Descent into Hell (1937), Ch. 5, "Return to Eden"

Peace , Way , Understanding , Thinking

“Abiogenesis has a decent amount of evidence behind it, but nowhere near as much as evolution does. So far we still don’t know which (if any) of the explanations posed for the origin of life is the most accurate one. But if there’s one thing the wisdom of the ages has taught us, it is that simply not yet knowing the real explanation is no reason to go and blame anything on magic. Besides, even if a god did appear and summon the first life into being billions of years ago, there is no question but that life has certainly evolved since then, and is still evolving now.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"6th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3k0dDFxkhM, Youtube (February 2, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Life , Wisdom , God , Age

“Glasnost was a phenomenal, renaissance period in the history of Russia and taught me much about importance of freedom of information. The only real way to improve conditions of civilizations is to provide open access to information for education and culture, and to be honest about the past. Otherwise we spend our lives siloed from each other and we repeat the mistakes of our grandparents.”

Lila Tretikov (1978) Russian–American engineer, manager and former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation

Lila Tretikov (2014) as quoted by [Jemima Kiss and Samuel Gibbs, Wikipedia boss Lila Tretikov, http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/06/wikipedia-lila-tretikov-glasnost-freedom-of-information, The Guardian, 2014-08-06] and repeated in the closing statement in [Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), http://www.worldcat.org/title/facebook-nation-total-information-awareness/oclc/885416529, Springer Science+Business Media, 2014-10-17, 361]

Education , Way , History , Freedom

“The lowest form of popular culture—lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives—has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.”

Carl Bernstein (1944) American journalist

An A-Z of cultural terms, The Guardian (1992)

People , Truth , Reality

“The real jewel of my disease-ridden woodlot is the prothonotary warbler. … The flash of his gold-and-blue plumage amid the dank decay of the June woods is in itself proof that dead trees are transmuted into living animals, and vice versa.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“November: A Mighty Fortress”, p. 77.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "November: Axe-in-Hand," "November: A Mighty Fortress," and "December: Pines above the Snow"

Disease , Tree , Animals , Dead

“In heaven, “we will have a real body with a real voice—and we will recognize each other’s voice.””

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 76

“Abstract Expressionism – especially Pollock, not the more academic painters like De Kooning – made the threshold between illusion and the stuff of painting lower, the distance between them closer. Pollock made all things about the picture, all the stuff, actual. Taking the canvas off the stretcher, putting it on the floor, made it more real. Mixing up different kinds of paint, getting it to stain in, was getting at a kind of materiality.”

Kenneth Noland (1924–2010) American artist

Kenneth Noland, p. 14
Conversation with Karen Wilkin' (1986-1988)

Painting

“If it is a fact that in Naples everything is for sale, how much more true must this be in Poggio Reale?”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“The only real game — I think — in the world is baseball.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Farewell Address (1947)

World , Game , Thinking

“I think one word we can agree Bob is, uh? Epic, classic. Thriller, block-buster. I think all the clichés were made real. I mean? You woke up this morning, saying you felt nervous about this game. Now, I know why.”

Ian Darke (1950) British association football and boxing commentator

Brazil v. United States http://www.listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=ke8XNArZvVU (10 July 2011).
2010s, 2011, 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup

Game , Thinking

“Gentrification is a process that hides the apparatus of domination from the dominant themselves. Spiritually, gentrification is the removal of the dynamic mix that defines urbanity—the familiar interaction of different kinds of people creating ideas together. Urbanity is what makes cities great, because the daily affirmation that people from other experiences are real makes innovative solutions and experiments possible. In this way, cities historically have provided acceptance, opportunity, and a place to create ideas contributing to freedom. Gentrification in the seventies, eighties, and nineties replaced urbanity with suburban values, … so that the suburban conditioning of racial and class stratification, homogeneity of consumption, mass-produced aesthetics, and familial privatization got resituated into big building, attached residences, and apartments. This undermines urbanity and recreates cities as centers of obedience instead of instigators of positive change.”

Sarah Schulman (1958) American writer

Source: The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination (2012), p. 27

People , Family , Way , Idea

“Take any action allow’d to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflexion into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but ’tis the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compar’d to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind”

David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature

.
Part 1, Section 1
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 3: Of morals

Way , Feeling , Motivation , Nature

“The real nature of the present revealed itself: it was what exists, all that was not present did not exist.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Nausea (1938)

Nature

“As a conservative who believes in limited government, I believe the only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press. A free press ensures the flow of information to the public, and let me say, during a time when the role of government in our lives and in our enterprises seems to grow every day--both at home and abroad--ensuring the vitality of a free and independent press is more important than ever.”

Mike Pence (1959) 48th Vice President of the United States

World Press Freedom Day (May 4, 2009)
2000s

Home , Time

“The Obie-Bunting showdown was only a screen for Archie's real purpose- searching for the traitor. He suspected that the traitor was a member of The Vigils. More than suspected. Few kids outside The Vigils knew that the day off from school was to have coincided with the Bishop's visit. And the letter to Leon had focused on the visit. Thus, the meeting was a place to begin his pursuit of the traitor, and instinct- instinct that had never failed him- dictated that he would find his betrayer there.”

Robert Cormier book Beyond the Chocolate War

Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 95

School , Search , Betrayal

“We are now in the midst of a severe winter during which many pensioners are not eating properly, are going to bed early and are suffering badly from hypothermia because they cannot afford to pay heating bills and therefore keep themselves warm and in health…The House should be aware that pensioners are treated badly. I should be happy if the Government presented proposals for a serious and real increase in the old-age pension. The real problem for pensioners is poverty. Although my Bill would help to alleviate that poverty, the real problem is the low level of the state pension…I propose the abolition of standing charges for gas and electricity for pensioners, and that there should not be an immediate increase in the unit cost of gas and electricity. The cost of abolition, which was estimated at £300 million in a recent parliamentary answer to me from the Department of Energy, should be borne by the Government only, so that the real cost of gas and electricity will be lower for pensioners than for other people.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1985/jan/30/pensioners-right-to-fuel-and in the House of Commons (30 January 1985).
1980s

Happiness , People , Health , Age

“Power with God will be the gauge of real power with men.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(Hudson Taylor’s Choice Sayings: A Compilation from His Writings and Addresses. London: China Inland Mission, n.d., 49).

Men , God , Gauge

“The President’s proposed budget for FY 2015 under the N. E. P. or the National Expenditure Program amounts to P2.606 trillion, reflecting an increase of P341.372 billion or 15.07% higher than the Fiscal Year 2014 budget. It is anchored on a real GDP projection of 7-8%, an inflation rate of 2-4%, 364-day T-Bill rate of 2-4%, and a foreign exchange rate of P42-45 to the dollar.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2014, Speech: Sponsorship Speech for the FY 2015 National Budget

“A deepened, high-energy democracy does not seek to replace the real world of interests and of interest-bearing individuals with the selfless citizen and with the all-consuming theater of public life. It is not a flight into republican purism and fantasy. It wants to enhance our ordinary powers, enlarge the scope of our ordinary sympathies and ambitions, and render more intense our ordinary experience. It seeks to do so by diminishing the distance between the ordinary moves we may within institutional and ideological contexts take for granted and the extraordinary initiatives by which we challenge and change pieces of those contexts. Its agent and its beneficiary are one and the same: the real thing—the frail, self-interested, longing individual in the flesh, the victim of circumstance whom no circumstance can ever completely or definitively confine.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger book The Left Alternative

Source: The Left Alternative (2009), p. 30-1

Life , World , Democracy , Change

“In spite of Darwin's hopes, the acceptance of his views has led to no real improvement — scarcely indeed to any change at all in either the practice or aims of systematists. In a famous passage in the Origin he confidently declares that when his interpretation is generally adopted "Systematists will be able to pursue their labours as at present; but they will not be incessantly haunted by the shadowy doubt whether this or that form be a true species. This, I feel sure, and I speak after experience, will be no slight relief. The endless disputes whether or not some fifty species of British brambles are good species will cease." Those disputes nevertheless proceed almost exactly as before. It is true that biologists in general do not, as formerly, participate in these discussions because they have abandoned systematics altogether; but those who are engaged in the actual work of naming and cataloguing animals and plants usually debate the old questions in the old way. There is still the same divergence of opinion and of practice, some inclining to make much of small differences, others to neglect them. Not only does the work of the sytematists as a whole proceed as if Darwin had never written but their attitude towards these problems is but little changed.”

William Bateson (1861–1926) British geneticist and biologist

Source: Problems In Genetics (1913), p. 10

Hope , Way , Feeling , Confidence

“Dicko: Oh my God, you can dance can't you. Hey look, fantastic song for you. You look wonderful. If you can't do bling on a disco night when can you? That was just a real eye opener for me. That was just a real, real joyous experience for me. What we've noticed, and certainly at the finals stage is there is the performance that defines someone and shows their true star potential. For me that was yours. That was terrific.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Final Performances, Final 9

God , Star , Dance , Night

“Not til the late nineteenth century was the doctrine of the subordination of time and change seriously challenged. Bergson and William James, animated by different motives and proceeding by different methods, then installed change at the very heart of things. Bergson took his stand on the primacy of life and consciousness, which are notoriously in a state of flux. He assimilated that which is completely real in the natural world to them, conceiving the static as that which life leaves behind as a deposit as it moves on. From this point of view he criticized mechanistic and teleological theories on the ground that both are guilty of the same error, although from opposite points. Fixed laws which govern change and fixed ends toward which changes tend are both the products of a backward look, one that ignores the forward movement of life. They apply only to that which life has produced and has then left behind in its ongoing vital creative course, a course whose behavior and outcome are unpredictable both mechanistically and from the standpoint of ends.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Time and Individuality (1940)

Life , World , Law , Behavior

“It has been generally believed that only the complex numbers could legitimately be used as the ground field in discussing quantum-mechanical operators. Over the complex field, Frobenius' theorem is of course not valid; the only division algebra over the complex field is formed by the complex numbers themselves. However, Frobenius' theorem is relevant precisely because the appropriate ground field for much of quantum mechanics is real rather than complex.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

[The threefold way: algebraic structure of symmetry groups and ensembles in quantum mechanics, Jour. Math. Phys., 3, 1962, 1199–1215, https://books.google.com/books?id=nnyNUidX1OMC&pg=PA410] (p. 1200)

“Having been selected to be an author in the World Book, I now believe that Wikipedia is a perfectly fine source for your information, because I know what the quality control is for real encyclopedias — they let me in.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture (2007)

Books , World

“The problems of the real world are primarily those you are left with when you refuse to apply their effective solutions.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

Dijkstra (1988) " On the cruelty of really teaching computing science http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036.html (EWD1036).
1980s

World , Problem

“Of course after the conference a desperate attempt was made by Mr. Bonham-Carter to show that of course they weren't committed to federation at all. Well I prefer to go by what Mr. Grimond says; I think he's more important. And when he was asked about this question there was no doubt about his answer; it was on television. And the question was [laughter] I see what you mean, I see what you mean. Yes was the question: "But the mood of your conference today was that Europe should be a federal state. Now if we had to choose between a federal Europe and the Commonwealth, this would have to be a choice wouldn't it? You couldn't have the two." And Mr. Grimond replied in these brilliantly clear sentences: "You could have a Commonwealth linked, though not of course a direct political link, you could have a Commonwealth link of other sorts. But of course a federal Europe I think is a very important point. Now the real thing is that if you are going to have a democratic Europe, if you are going to control the running of Europe democratically, you've got to move towards some form of federalism and if anyone says different to that they're really misleading the public." That's one in the eye for Mr. Bonham-Carter. [laughter] Now we must be clear about this, it does mean, if this is the idea, the end of Britain as an independent nation-state. I make no apology for repeating it, the end of a thousand years of history. You may say: "All right let it end." But, my goodness, it's a decision that needs a little care and thought. [clapping] And it does mean the end of the Commonwealth; how can one really seriously suppose that if the mother country, the centre of the Commonwealth, is a province of Europe, which is what federation means, it could continue to exist as the mother country of a series of independent nations; it is sheer nonsense.”

Hugh Gaitskell (1906–1963) British politician

Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1962, page 159.
Speaking against the Liberal Party's policy of British membership of the European Communities, Labour Party Conference, 2 October 1962.
See the video clip here http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/6967366.stm

History , Idea , Mood , Question

“Possibly the only real object-oriented system in working order. (About Internet)”

Alan Kay (1940) computer scientist

2010 for Computerworld Australia http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/352182/z_programming_languages_smalltalk-80/
2010s

“I had a very pleasant evening, however, though you will probably find out that there was no particular reason for it; but I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter (1799-01-21) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Thinking , Waiting

“For 40 years, everyone running for president has released their tax returns. You can go and see nearly, I think, 39, 40 years of our tax returns, but everyone has done it. We know the IRS has made clear there is no prohibition on releasing it when you're under audit. So you've got to ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he's not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don't know all of his business dealings, but we have been told through investigative reporting that he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks. Or maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax. So if he's paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health. And I think probably he's not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of our country see what the real reasons are, because it must be something really important, even terrible, that he's trying to hide. And the financial disclosure statements, they don't give you the tax rate. They don't give you all the details that tax returns would. And it just seems to me that this is something that the American people deserve to see. And I have no reason to believe that he's ever going to release his tax returns, because there's something he's hiding.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

People , Health , School , Business

“I say I'm an anti-theist because I think it would be rather awful if it was true. If there was a permanent, total, around-the-clock, divine supervision…an invigilation of everything you did…you would never have a waking or sleeping moment where you weren't being watched and controlled and supervised by some celestial entity, from the moment of conception til…well not even to your death, because it's only after death that the real fun begins, isn't it? It would be like living in North Korea.”

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

Hannity's America, May 13, 2007 interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created
2000s, 2007

Death , Thinking , Sleep

“The right hon. Gentleman's statement was that Germany has already at this moment a military air force which is approaching equality with our own, and that by this time next year, if Germany continues to execute her programme without acceleration and if we continue to carry out the increase announced to Parliament in July last, the German military air force will be at least as strong as, and may be stronger than, our own…It is not the case that Germany is rapidly approaching equality with us…Even if we confine the comparison to the German air strength and the strength of the Royal Air Force immediately available in Europe, Germany is actively engaged in the production of service aircraft, but her real strength is not 50 per cent. of our strength in Europe to-day. As for the position this time next year, if she continues to execute her air programme without acceleration and if we continue to carry out at the present approved rate the expansion announced to Parliament in July…so far from the German military air force being at least as strong as and probably stronger than our own, we estimate that we shall still have in Europe a margin—in Europe alone—of nearly 50 per cent.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1934/nov/28/debate-on-the-address in the House of Commons (28 November 1934).
1934

Strong , Time

“I'm not saying I came up with anything [laughs]. It's like people thinking we would be more real if we went onstage in jeans and T-shirts. How ignorant is that, to think that because they don't wear a suit onstage that someone is giving you the real deal? People do come and see us and think, "Look at all these gimmicks."”

Jack White (1975) American musician and record producer

Go ahead, man. Go ahead and think that.
From the article White on White from Rolling Stone Magazine
In response to a question about his relationship with Meg being false
On 'gimmicks

People , Thinking

“Wonderful. Not many would understand this, if they had a clue of even half of my teen and long adult life. The reality is, at age 77, it is pure joy that both children and 80 year-olds can enjoy the film together. I could be working in the White House and children could care less. But let someone say, “that dude over there was the face, or voice of Bambi,” and I am an immediate adopted grandfather to them. That is just an unmatchable joy, and a real responsibility.”

Donnie Dunagan (1934) actor and United States Marine

A Discussion With Donnie Dunagun: The Voice Of Bambi http://www.mouseinfo.com/forums/movies-television/93590-discussion-donnie-dunagun-voice-bambi.html (February 24, 2011)

Life , Children , Age , Understanding

“In televisionland we are all sophisticated enough now to realize that every statistic has an equal and opposite statistic somewhere in the universe. It is not a candidate's favorite statistic per se that engages us, but the assurance with which he can use it.
We are testing the candidates for self-confidence, for "Presidentiality" in statistical bombardment. It doesn't really matter if their statistics be homemade. What settles the business is the cool with which they are dropped.
And so, as the second half hour treads the decimaled path toward the third hour, we become aware of being locked in a tacit conspiracy with the candidates. We know their statistics go to nothing of importance, and they know we know, and we know they know we know.
There is total but unspoken agreement that the "debate," the arguments which are being mustered here, are of only the slightest importance.
As in some primitive ritual, we all agree — candidates and onlookers — to pretend we are involved in a debate, although the real exercise is a test of style and manners. Which of the competitors can better execute the intricate maneuvers prescribed by a largely irrelevant ritual?
This accounts for the curious lack of passion in both performers. Even when Ford accuses Carter of inconsistency, it is done in a flat, emotionless, game-playing style. The delivery has the tuneless ring of an old press release from the Republican National Committee. Just so, when Carter has an opportunity to set pulses pounding by denouncing the Nixon pardon, he dances delicately around the invitation like a maiden skirting a bog.
We judge that both men judge us to be drained of desire for passion in public life, to be looking for Presidents who are cool and noninflammable. They present themselves as passionless technocrats using an English singularly devoid of poetry, metaphor and even coherent forthright declaration.
Caught up in the conspiracy, we watch their coolness with fine technical understanding and, in the final half hour, begin asking each other for technical judgments. How well is Carter exploiting the event to improve our image of him? Is Ford's television manner sufficiently self-confident to make us sense him as "Presidential"?
It is quite extraordinary. Here we are, fully aware that we are being manipulated by image projectionists, yet happily asking ourselves how obligingly we are submitting to the manipulation. It is as though a rat running a maze were more interested in the psychologist's charts on his behavior than in getting the cheese at the goal line.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"And All of Us So Cool" (p.340)
There's a Country in My Cellar (1990)

Life , Men , Behavior , Exercises