Quotes about real (5918 quotes, page 56)

“The real evil, the fundamental cause of all the problems of the world today — the fact that two-thirds of the world live in absolute poverty, on less than a dollar a day, while others have not even that, and are dying in the millions — the root of all of that is our complacency.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

If we were not complacent we could not bear to live in a world in which these events were happening, these people were dying in the midst of plenty. We would not allow it to happen if we were not complacent. This is something which we need to remember... because this is the root of all the troubles in the world. It is a sign of our separateness. Complacency results from separation — the sense that we are separate and that by competition we become superior — and that superiority allows us to live what we call ‘well’. But we cannot live ‘well’ when two-thirds of the world are living and dying in absolute poverty. It is not possible to do so with impunity, and we do not. The result is crime. The result is catastrophe of one kind or another — governments which create wars for oil, for example. That is a catastrophe, and it is only possible because we are complacent, because we do not acknowledge the needs of millions of people who cannot take for granted what we take for granted: regular food, leisure, education and healthcare.
The World Teacher for All Humanity (2007)

World , Problem , Evil

“Peace does not simply mean the absence of conflict… There can therefore be no real peace without justice or consent… Peace does not fare well where poverty and deprivation reign… It is very significant that there has never been a war between genuine and universal democracies. There have been countless wars between totalitarian and authoritarian states. There have been wars between democracies and dictatorships - most often in defense of democratic values or in response to aggression.”

F. W. de Klerk (1936) South African politician

Nobel Peace Prize speech (10 December 1993)
1990s

Democracy , Peace , Justice , War

“You know, as I do, that we face two deep-seated problems, inflation and unemployment. Both of them are still too high. … I have to emphasize to you that if we fail to bring down inflation, we shall never succeed in overcoming unemployment. We cannot have a prosperous industry in this country if we are unable to sell our goods overseas. No one owes Britain a living, and may I say to you quite bluntly that despite the measures of the last 12 months, we are still not earning the standard of living we are enjoying. We are only keeping up our standards by borrowing, and this cannot go on indefinitely. There is no soft option. I do not promise you any real easement for some time to come. There can be no lasting improvement in your own living standards until we can achieve it without going deeper and deeper into debt as a nation.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

First television broadcast as Prime Minister (5 April 1976), quoted in The Times (6 April 1976), pp. 1–2
Prime Minister

Problem , Time , Country

“The power structure in Britain is changing. Authority is no longer obeyed for its own sake. There are severe limits on what government can do, so the way to win the battle against inflation and unemployment is not to try to dragoon the country. If we do we shall fail. We must secure its consent. We are playing for high stakes. In a real sense, adherence to the social contract puts on trial whether our society has the will and determination to solve its problems by democratic means.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in London (27 November 1974), quoted in The Times (28 November 1974), p. 6
Foreign Secretary

Country , Problem , Sense , Way

“I do not know. That is the only real truth, Shaarilla. I do not know.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Source: The Elric Cycle, The Weird of the White Wolf (1977), Chapter 1, “A Woman Who Would Risk Grief to Her Soul” (p. 452)

Truth

“Is the Gospel story historically true? Is it a mystical tale of great beauty and of real teaching value but nevertheless of no vital import to the intelligent men and women of today, who pride themselves on their reasoning powers and upon their independence of ancient mental trammels and of old and dusty traditions? As to the perfection of the portrayed character of Christ there is never any question. The enemies of Christianity admit His uniqueness, His basic profundity and His understanding of the hearts of men. They recognise the intelligence of His ideas and sponsor them in their own philosophies. The developments which the Carpenter of Nazareth brought about in the fabric of human life, His social and economic ideals, and the beauty of the civilisation which could be founded upon the ethical teaching of the Sermon on the Mount are frequently emphasised by many who refuse to recognise His mission as an expression of divinity.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: From Bethlehem to Calvary (1937), Chapter One

Understanding , Question , Beauty , Intelligence

“When I went to America, her message had so sunk into my ears that I became a radical. I went to America to study at the University of California, where a jurist of international law was teaching. I wanted to take my degree in international law. And that was the period of McCarthyism, of the communist witch hunts—my choices were laid out. To get away from Sunset Boulevard, from the girls with red nail polish, I ran off to Maxwell Street and lived among the Negroes. A week, a month. I felt good with them—they were real, they knew how to laugh. And the day in San Diego when I wasn’t able to get a hotel room because I have olive skin and looked like a Mexican … well, that helped.”

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928–1979) Fourth President and ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan

Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Ali Bhutto in Karachi, April 1972

Study , Law , Girl , Help

“I grew up with a real romanticism about America. I grew up in a first-generation household where your parents give up everything, and for me America was the greatest thing ever to exist. To be there on the floor of the House was beyond anything my parents would have ever dreamed of.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (1989) American politician

Quoted in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Coming for Your Hamburgers!, David Remnick, The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-is-coming-for-your-hamburgers (3 March 2019)
Quotes (2019)

Housing , Dreams , Parent

“To-day the most comprehensive system of social security ever introduced into any country would start in Britain. The four Acts—National Insurance, Industrial Injuries, National Assistance, and National Health Service—represented the main body of the army of social security. … We cannot create a scheme which gives the nation a whole more than they put into it, and it is always the general level of production that settles our standard of material well-being. Only higher output can give us more of the things we all need. This will decide the real value of the money payments.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast (4 July 1948), quoted in The Times (5 July 1948), p. 6
Prime Minister

Money , Health , Country

“I hope there are none of you, corrupted with the doctrine taught by wicked men for the worst purposes, and received by the malignant credulity of envy and ignorance, which is, that the men who act upon the public stage are all alike; all equally corrupt; all influenced by no other views than the sordid lure of salary and pension. The thing, I know by experience to be false. Never expecting to find perfection in men, and not looking for divine attributes in created beings, in my commerce with my contemporaries, I have found much human virtue. I have seen not a little public spirit; a real subordination of interest to duty; and a decent and regulated sensibility to honest fame and reputation. The age unquestionably produces (whether in a greater or less number than former times, I know not) daring profligates and insidious hypocrites. What then? Am I not to avail myself of whatever good is to be found in the world, because of the mixture of evil that will always be in it? The smallness of the quantity in currency only heightens the value. They, who raise suspicions on the good on account of the behaviour of ill men, are of the party of the latter.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)

Time , Hope , Perfection , Falseness

“Civil freedom, gentlemen, is not, as many have endeavoured to persuade you, a thing that lies hid in the depth of abstruse science. It is a blessing and a benefit, not an abstract speculation; and all the just reasoning that can bo upon it, is of so coarse a texture, as perfectly to suit the ordinary capacities of those who are to enjoy, and of those who are to defend it. Far from any resemblance to those propositions in geometry and metaphysics, which admit no medium, but must be true or false in all their latitude; social and civil freedom, like all other things in common life, are variously mixed and modified, enjoyed in very different degrees, and shaped into an infinite diversity of forms, according to the temper and circumstances of every community. The extreme of liberty (which is its abstract perfection, but its real fault) obtains no where, nor ought to obtain any where. Because extremes, as we all know, in every point which relates either to our duties or satisfactions in life, are destructive both to virtue and enjoyment. Liberty too must be limited in order to be possessed. The degree of restraint it is impossible in any case to settle precisely. But it ought to be the constant aim of every wise public counsel, to find out by cautious experiments, and rational, cool endeavours, with how little, not how much of this restraint, the community can subsist. For liberty is a good to be improved, and not an evil to be lessened. It is not only a private blessing of the first order, but the vital spring and energy of the state itself, which has just so much life and vigour as there is liberty in it. But whether liberty be advantageous or not, (for I know it is a fashion to decry the very principle,) none will dispute that peace is a blessing; and peace must in the course of human affairs be frequently bought by some indulgence and toleration at least to liberty. For as the sabbath (though of divine institution) was made for man, not man for the sabbath, government, which can claim no higher origin or authority, in its exercise at least, ought to conform to the exigencies of the time, and the temper and character of the people, with whom it is concerned; and not always to attempt violently to bend the people to their theories of subjection. The bulk of mankind on their part are not excessively curious concerning any theories, whilst they are really happy; and one sure symptom of an ill-conducted state, is the propensity of the people to resort to them.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)

Peace , Time , Freedom , People

“In appreciating the value of space activities to a developing nation, one should recognize some inherent problems. They arise from the glamour that is associated with space activities. There is a real danger that developing nations may adopt a space program largely for this glamour, devoting resources not through a recognition of the values of which we are talking about here, but from a desire to create a sham image nationally and internationally. International cooperation in space activities may stimulate this state of affairs.”

Vikram Sarabhai (1919–1971) (1919-1971), Indian physicist

Quoted in "The Power of the Space Club"
Source: [Paikowsky, Deganit, The Power of the Space Club, 2017, Cambridge University Press, 9781107194496, https://books.google.co.in/books?id=e9AoDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA157&lpg=PA157#v=onepage&q&f=false, 12 September 2019, en]

Problem

“There are some who question the relevance of space activities in a developing nation. To us, there is no ambiguity of purpose. We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the Moon or the planets or manned space-flight. But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society, which we find in our country. And we should note that the application of sophisticated technologies and methods of analysis to our problems is not to be confused with embarking on grandiose schemes, whose primary impact is for show rather than for progress measured in hard economic and social terms.”

Vikram Sarabhai (1919–1971) (1919-1971), Indian physicist

Quoted in "List Of Important Speeches And Papers By Dr. Vikram A. Sarabhai"
Source: [List Of Important Speeches And Papers By Dr. Vikram A. Sarabhai., https://www.prl.res.in/~library/sarabhai_v_speeches.pdf, PRL.res.in, 27 June 2019, https://web.archive.org/web/20190627181445/https://www.prl.res.in/~library/sarabhai_v_speeches.pdf, 27 June 2019, 113]

Problem , Question , Country , Communication

“It is 50 years old, it is going in the wrong direction. It is time for real reform. The only way to get that is to leave.”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Boris Johnson: EU exit 'win-win for us all' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35783049, BBC News, 11 March 2016
2010s

Way , Time

“The real challenge for the Democratic Party, and its presidential candidates in particular, is to figure out how to reverse the Right’s stranglehold on our political vocabulary, without adopting the kind of lock-step dogmatic monolithism that empowered the likes of Gingrich. I don’t have a quick solution handy, but I’m pretty sure that if the Dems don’t act fast to reclaim our language, they risk losing the word battle before they realize they’re fighting it.”

Pete Buttigieg (1982) American politician

8 December 2003
The Struggle for Language
The Harvard Crimson
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/12/8/the-struggle-for-language-you-heard/
2003

Fight

“The Christ within who is our hope of glory is not a matter of theological debate or philosophical speculation. He is not a hobby, a part-time project, a good theme for a book, or a last resort when all human effort fails. He is our life, the most real fact about us. He is the power and wisdom of God dwelling within us.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: 1990s, Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging (1994), p. 130

God , Time , Hope , Books

“They use their media to assassinate real news. They use their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler. They use their movie stars and singers and comedy shows and award shows to repeat their narrative over and over again. And then they use their ex-president to endorse the resistance. All to make them march, make them protest, make them scream racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia. To smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law-abiding until the only option left is for the police to do their jobs and stop the madness. And when that happens, they’ll use it as an excuse for their outrage. The only way we stop this, the only we save our country and our freedom, is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth. I’m the National Rifle Association of America, and I’m freedom’s safest place.”

Dana Loesch (1978) American conservative political commentator

April, 2017 in season 2 episode 2 of the NRATV series Freedom's Safest Place and June, 2017 excerpted as a video advertisement for the NRA ([Dana, Loesch, The Violence of Lies, NRATV, Freedom's Safest Place, April 2017, May 20, 2019, https://www.nratv.com/episodes/freedoms-safest-place-season-2-episode-2-the-violence-of-lies]; [N.R.A. Ad Condemning Protests Against Trump Raises Partisan Anger, Jonah, Engel Bromwich, June 29, 2017, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/us/nra-ad-trump-protests.html]; [Secrecy, Self-Dealing, and Greed at the N.R.A., Mike, Spies, April 17, 2019, The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/secrecy-self-dealing-and-greed-at-the-nra]; [NRA advert calling on Americans to 'fight lies' called 'an open call to violence', Emily, Shugerman, June 29, 2017, The Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nra-advert-video-watch-guns-trump-fight-lies-violence-fist-truth-a7815231.html]; [NRA video declares war on liberals, critics say, William, Cummings, USA Today, June 29, 2017, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/30/controversial-nra-video/441506001/]; Live-Streaming the Apocalypse With NRATV, Parker, James, June 2018, The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/nratv-live-streaming-the-apocalypse/559139/,; [N.R.A. Ad Condemning Protests Against Trump Raises Partisan Anger, Bromwich, Jonah Engel, June 29, 2017, The New York Times, May 20, 2019, en-US, 0362-4331, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/us/nra-ad-trump-protests.html]; [The NRA recruitment video that is even upsetting gun owners, Peter, Holley, June 29, 2017, May 20, 2019, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/29/the-nra-recruitment-video-that-is-even-upsetting-gun-owners/]; [A Chilling National Rifle Association Ad Gaining Traction Online Appears to Be 'An Open Call to Violence', Business Insider, May 20, 2019, Natasha, Bertrand, June 29, 2017, http://www.businessinsider.com/national-rifle-association-ad-call-to-violence-2017-6]; [The NRA just released a violent, terrifying ad, Matthew, Rozsa, June 29, 2017, May 24, 2019, Salon, https://www.salon.com/2017/06/29/the-nra-just-released-a-violent-terrifying-ad/]; [How the N.R.A. Manipulates Gun Owners and the Media, Michael, Luo, w:Michael Luo, August 11, 2017, May 23, 2019, The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-nra-manipulates-gun-owners-and-the-media]; [The NRA’s New Scare Tactics, Laura, Reston, October 3, 2017, The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/article/145001/nra-new-scare-tactic-gun-lobby-remaking-itself-arm-alt-right])

School , Law , Freedom , Country

“The part that the woman can play in the development of a revolutionary process is of extraordinary importance. It is well to emphasize this, since in all our countries, with their colonial mentality, there is a certain underestimation of the woman which becomes a real discrimination against her. The woman is capable of performing the most difficult tasks, of fighting beside the men; and despite current belief, she does not create conflicts of a sexual type in the troops.”

Ernesto Che Guevara book Guerrilla Warfare

Source: Guerrilla Warfare (1961), Ch. III: 3. The Role of the Woman

Fight , Country , Parting , Men

“The rifts between Shia and Sunni, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic, Israelis and Palestinians, Tibetans and Chinese, obviously have real political, theological, or economic substance behind them, but they are often reduced to symbolism. If you study the history of nationalism, it is often a story of symbols. What flag shall we fly? What icon shall we mount? What books will we revere — or burn?”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

"The Border Wall Is a Symbol of Our Symbolic Politics" https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/border-wall-immigration-debate-political-symbol/ (28 December 2018), National Review
2010s, 2018

Study , Books , History , Flying

“Anderson demonstrates that if one accepts a sham mystery as real, one has stopped or strayed in the search for truth, and truth has survival value.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Patrick L. McGuire, Her Strong Enchantments Failing (p. 94)
Short fiction, The Book of Poul Anderson (1975)

Truth , Search

“The Democrats… gave Trump a huge gift. In fact, they may have handed him the next election. That’s just a—that’s a matter of being so unwilling to deal with fundamental issues, that they’re looking for something on the side that will somehow give political success. The real issues are different things. They’re things like climate change, like global warming, like the Nuclear Posture Review, deregulation. These are real issues. But the Democrats aren’t going after those. They’re looking for something else—the Democratic establishment. I’m not talking about the young cohort that’s coming in, which is quite different. Just all of that has to be shifted significantly, if there’s going to be a legitimate political opposition to the right-wing drift that’s taking place. And it can happen, can definitely happen, but it’s going to take work.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Chomsky: By Focusing on Russia, Democrats Handed Trump a “Huge Gift” & Possibly the 2020 Election, DemocracyNow https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/27/chomsky_by_focusing_on_russia_democrats (27 May 2019)
Quotes 2010s, 2019, By Focusing on Russia, Democrats Handed Trump a “Huge Gift”

Success , Change

“The real problem in Italy is the wall on the subject: I worked with the French (the numbers one for the hard), the Americans, the Spaniards, the Germans but only the Italians make a thousand problems …”

Rocco Siffredi (1964) Italian pornographic actor, director, producer and entrepreneur

Interview by Andrea Di Marcantonio

Problem , Making love

“The hard has become a real industry; he thinks that ten thousand films are produced in the United States and as many in Europe.”

Rocco Siffredi (1964) Italian pornographic actor, director, producer and entrepreneur

Interview by Andrea Di Marcantonio

Thinking

“But she lay long awake that night, nor did she wish for sleep. Her waking fancies were more alluring than any vision of dreamland. Had the real Prince come at last? Recalling those glorious dark eyes which had gazed so deeply into her own, Anne was very strongly inclined to think he had.”

Lucy Maud Montgomery book Anne of the Island

Source: Anne of the Island (1915), Ch. 25

Sleep , Thinking , Night

“Ukraine this year celebrated 25 years of independence, but it was real independence only after the Maidan, when a real state started to form. Here we have an example of a person who left his career to fight. New heroes of the new Ukraine are being born.”

Vasyl Slipak (1974–2016) Ukrainian opera singer

Artyom Skoropadsky, a spokesman for Right Sector. Wassyl Slipak, Who Left Paris Opera for Ukraine War, Dies at 41 // The New York Times. - 2016. - June 30. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/world/europe/wassyl-slipak-who-left-paris-opera-for-ukraine-war-dies-at-41.html?_r=0

Fight , Personality

“No deal is now a very real prospect.”

Michael Gove (1967) British politician

No-deal Brexit now 'assumed' by government, says Gove https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49141375 BBC News (28 July 2019)
2019

“No-one can be blithe or blase about the real impact on food producers in this country of leaving without a deal.”

Michael Gove (1967) British politician

Speech at the Oxford Farming Conference https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46743164, BBC News, 3 January 2019
2019

Country , Food

“When it comes to a no-deal Brexit, we need to stop talking in terms of the hypothetical and theoretical, and start talking with candour about real and damaging consequences it would bring. It would be catastrophic.”

Jane Dodds (1963) Welsh Liberal Democrat politician elected to the UK Parliament in 2019

Brexit: MPs back bill aimed at blocking no deal https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49580185 BBC News (4 September 2019)
2019

“That shit is the real deal. Listen: I’m a black motherfucker from the poorest town in the country. I’ve been through a lot in life. And I know him. When I see him, he shakes my hand and respects my family. None of them—Barack, whoever—nobody else does that. They’re gonna be who they are and disregard me, my family. So I’m voting for him. If I can get 20,000 people or more to vote for him, I’m gonna do it.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

In an interview with The Daily Caller. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/21/mike-tyson-why-i-m-a-muslim-for-donald-trump.html (January 21, 2016)
On Donald Trump

Family , Life , People , Country

“We may be a small party and a small country but we can stand tall if we stand together and if we stand up for our principles. Real independence means collectively lifting our people out of poverty leaving no-one behind, building a future based on hope not on fear.”

Leanne Wood (1971) Welsh Plaid Cymru politician

Plaid Cymru elect Leanne Wood as new leader https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-17381377, BBC News, 15 March 2012
2012

Country , Future , Hope , People

“We of the Occident are about to arrive at a crossroads that was reached by the thinkers of India some seven hundred years before Christ. This is the real reason, why we become both vexed and stimulated, uneasy and yet interested, when confronted with the concepts and images of Oriental wisdom.”

Heinrich Robert Zimmer (1890–1943) German historian

Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

Christ , Wisdom

“Nobody knows what is going to happen because so much depends on an enormous number of variables, on simple hazard. On the other hand if you look at history retrospectively, then, even though it was contingent, you can tell a story that makes sense…. Jewish history, for example, in fact had its ups and downs, its, enmities and its friendships, as every history of all people has. The notion that there is one unilinear history is of course false. But if you look at it after the experience of Auschwitz it looks as though all of history—or at least history since the Middle Ages — had no other aim than Auschwitz…. This, is the real problem of every philosophy of history how is it possible that in retrospect it always looks as though it couldn’t have happened otherwise?”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist

The New York Review of Books interview with the French writer Roger Errera (1978)

Friendship , History , Dependency , People

“Real power begins where secrecy begins.”

Hannah Arendt book The Origins of Totalitarianism

Part 3, Ch. 12, § 1.
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)

“Remember crime against property is not real crime. People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Wall and Piece (2007)

Painting , People

“Prolonged and unseasonal droughts are hitting us real hard, and salt water is creeping into our freshwater lands. We are on the very front line of climate change. We are seeking the approval of our Parliament to declare a national climate crisis to spare no effort in mobilizing our response to this fight.”

Hilda Heine (1951) Marshallese politician

Hilda Heine (2019) cited in " We Are On The Front Line Of Climate Change, Marshall Islands President Says https://www.npr.org/2019/09/24/763679518/we-are-on-the-front-line-of-climate-change-marshall-islands-president-says" on npr, 24 September 2019.

Fight , Water , Change , Effort

“I believe there is another reason also why Spinoza seems to me so pre-eminent: that in spite of being traditional, or because he was not distracted by side issues, he was an entire and majestic mind, a singularly consecrated soul. All these trite dogmas and problems lived in him and were the natural channels for his intuitions and emotions. That is what I feel to make a real philosopher and not, what we are condemned to be, professors of the philosophy of other people, or of our own opinions.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

George Santayana, in his letter to Harry Austryn Wolfson, 16 June 1934
S - Z, George Santayana

Soul , People , Nature , Problem

“My philosophy is normal human orthodox philosophy, such as has come down from the Indians through the Greeks, to Spinoza. It is simply not Protestant philosophy. The problems of Protestant philosophy do not exist for me: I regard them as products of a confusion of thought, of a heresy. Catholic philosophy differs from the normal only in that it accepts sacred history as well as natural history as the true account of the facts: but when the facts are agreed upon, one way or another, philosophy has no real difficulty in discovering what to say. It has said everything essential already. To invent a philosophy would be not to have understood.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

George Santayana, in his letter to John Boynton Priestley, 15 September 1924
S - Z, George Santayana

Way , Problem , History , Nature

“It is true that God is necessity, or, as we may also put it, that he is the absolute Thing: he is however no less the absolute Person. That he is the absolute Person however is a point which the philosophy of Spinoza never reached: and on that side it falls short of the true notion of God which forms the content of religious consciousness in Christianity. Spinoza was by descent a Jew; and it is upon the whole the Oriental way of seeing things, according to which the nature of the finite world seems frail and transient, that has found its intellectual expression in his system. This Oriental view of the unity of substance certainly gives the basis for all real further development. Still it is not the final idea. It is marked by the absence of the principle of the Western world, the principle of individuality, which first appeared under a philosophic shape, contemporaneously with Spinoza, in the Monadology of Leibnitz.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences: The Logic
G - L, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

God , Personality , Nature , Way

“The national Log Cabin Republicans are ridiculous. They’re not conservative at all. I don’t even think they’re gay — they’re bi (partisan). GOProud is comprised of real conservatives who happen to be gay.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

Same with the Texas LCRs, for whom I’ve been signing books for years.
Dear Mainstream Media Reporter Who Wasted My Time (February 2, 2011) http://www.humanevents.com/2011/02/09/dear-mainstream-media-reporter-who-wasted-my-time/.
2011

Thinking

“The difference of development, North and South, is explained as a sort of working out of cosmic social and economic law. … In this sweeping mechanistic interpretation, there is no room for the real plot of the story, for the clear mistake and guilt of building a new slavery of the working class in the midst of a fateful experiment in democracy.”

W.E.B. Du Bois book Black Reconstruction

Source: Black Reconstruction in America (1935), pp. 714-715

Democracy , Law , Fate

“Poets, orators, even philosophes, say the same things about fame we were told as boys to encourage us to win prizes. What they tell children to make them prefer being praised to eating jam tarts is the same idea constantly drummed into us to encourage us to sacrifice our real interests in the hope of being praised by our contemporaries or by posterity.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Ce que les poètes, les orateurs, même quelques philosophes nous disent sur l'amour de la Gloire, on nous le disait au Collège, pour nous encourager à avoir les prix. Ce que l'on dit aux enfants pour les engager à préférer à une tartelette les louanges de leurs bonnes, c'est ce qu'on répète aux hommes pour leur faire préférer à un intérêt personnel les éloges de leurs contemporains ou de la postérité.
Maximes et Pensées, #85
Reflections

Children , Hope , Boy , Idea

“We of the Shroud tend to believe in teaching those things we know we can teach, and in affairs of the heart—or gonads—there are no real experts. Love, like zen, cannot be learned, only felt.”

Steve Perry book The Man Who Never Missed

Source: The Man Who Never Missed (1985), Chapter 10 (p. 87)

Heart , Love , Making love , Learning

“What is the use of all knowledge, if one does not act in accordance with it? This remark implies that knowledge is regarded as a means to action, and the latter as the real end. One could put the question the other way round and ask: How can we possibly act well without knowing what the Good is? This way of expressing it would regard knowledge as conditioning action. But both expressions are one-sided, and the truth is that both, knowledge as well as action, are in the same way inseparable elements of rational life.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book Address to the German Nation

Consequences of the Difference p. 75
Addresses to the German Nation (Reden an die deutsche Nation) 1808, Fifth Address

Question , Knowledge , Truth , Way

“The Divine Existence (Daseyn),—his Existence, I say, which, according to the distinction already laid down, is his (Manifestation and Revelation of himself—is absolute- only through itself, and of necessity, LIGHT:—namely, y the inward and spiritual Light. This Light, left to itself, separates and divides itself into an infinite multiplicity of individual rays; and in this way, in these individual rays, becomes estranged from itself and its | original source. But this same Light may also again concentrate itself from out this separation, and conceive and comprehend itself as One, as that which it is in itself,-the Existence and Revelation of God; remaining indeed, even in this conception, that which it is in its form,-Light; but yet in this condition, and even by means of this very condition, announcing it-to self as having no real Being in itself, but as only the, Existence and Self-Manifestation of God.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Way Towards The Blessed Life or the Doctrine of Religion 1806, p. 78

Way , Self-confidence , God , Light

“There is nothing whatever in Existence but immediate and living Thought:—Thought, I say, but by no means a thinking substance, a dead body in which thought inheres,—with which no-thought indeed a no-thinker is full surely at hand:—Thought, I say, and also the real Life of this Thought, which at bot tom is the Divine Life; both of which—Thought and, this its real Life—are molten together into one inward organic Unity; like as, outwardly, they are one simple, identical, eternal, and unchangeable Unity.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Way Towards The Blessed Life or the Doctrine of Religion 1806, P. 56

Life , Thinking , Dead

“As Being and Life are one and the same, so are Death and Nothingness one and the same. But there is no real Death and no real Nothing ness, as we have already said. There is, however, an Apparent Life, and this is the mixture of life and death, of being and nothingness.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Way Towards The Blessed Life or the Doctrine of Religion 1806, P. 4

Life , Death

“From boyhood—when I was an ardent admirer of Robert Owen—I have been interested in socialism, but reluctantly came to the conclusion that it was impracticable, and also to some extent repugnant to my ideas of individual liberty and home privacy. But Mr. Bellamy has completely altered my views on this matter. He seems to me to have shown that real, not merely delusive liberty, together with full scope for individualism and complete home privacy, is compatible with the most thorough industrial socialism—and henceforth I am heart and soul with him.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Alfred Russel Wallace, The Wonderful Century: Its Successes and Its Failures. Toronto : G.N. Morang, 1898.

Home , Idea , Heart , Soul

“My belt holds up my pants and my pants have belt loops that hold up the belt. What the fuck’s really goin on down there? Who is the real hero?”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Do You Believe in Gosh?

“It was probably like two to three years ago. I went vegan for a couple of months, just to lose weight immediately. It wasn’t for the moral aspect back then. It was more because once you go vegan, it sheds the bad fat real fast. I do that before the season, but I’ve been fully vegan for about five to six months now since the season started, and probably a month before. … When I do things, I just fully commit to it. I feel like there is no point in half-assing. I just do it, and if I don’t like it, I just stop doing it. It’s been good. I was losing weight and getting more cut, as you can see, and I just felt really good. … You just feel really good, lighter. And there is a lot more energy you have throughout the day. For me, it’s been good from that aspect.”

JaVale McGee (1988) American basketball player

"The Real-Life Diet of JaVale McGee, Vegan" https://www.gq.com/story/javale-mcgee-real-life-diet, interview with GQ (February 27, 2018).

Bad luck , Feeling , Season

“We middle class people are all same from inside. First things first, I logged into my Facebook account and checked-in there as well. You know what, it is more important to check-in on Facebook than it is to check-in for real at the airport. Let the world which gives zero fucks to what you are doing with your life, know you can afford a plane ticket for economy class. Right?”

Gaurav Sharma (author) (1992) Author and novelist

Gone are the Days (2016)

World , Life , People

“Pity for poverty, enthusiasm for equality and freedom, recognition of social injustice and a desire to remove it, is not socialism. Condemnation of wealth and respect for poverty, such as we find in Christianity and other religions, is not socialism. The communism of early times, as it was before the existence of private property, and as it has at all times and among all peoples been the elusive dream of some enthusiasts, is not socialism. The forcible equalization advocated by the followers of Baboeuf, the so-called equalitarians, is not socialism. In all these appearances there is lacking the real foundation of capitalist society with its class antagonisms. Modern socialism is the child of capitalist society and its class antagonisms.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

Without these it could not be. Socialism and ethics are two separate things. This fact must be kept in mind. Whoever conceives of socialism in the sense of a sentimental philanthropic striving after human equality, with no idea of the existence of capitalist society, is no socialist in the sense of the class struggle, without which modern socialism is unthinkable. Whoever has come to a full consciousness of the nature of capitalist society and the foundation of modern socialism, knows also that a socialist movement that leaves the basis of the class struggle may be anything else, but it is not socialism.
No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Religion , Time , Freedom , Wealth

“My dad was aware that some of his later films were less than Citizen Kane, but he always put his heart into his work and loved his fans. He told me that if even one person gets enjoyment of his work then he’s done his job. I wanted to personally thank you for the very nice way you remember him, if you ever met him you would know he was just a real sweet man.”

John Agar (1921–2002) American actor

John G. Agar III, [http://drgangrene.blogspot.com/2011/02/conversation-with-john-agar-iii.html A Conversation with John Agar III

Personality , Heart , Way , Love

“The only real formula for real success is Work and Faith. All may achieve this sort of success for all may work and the only happiness, the only success, is in labor.”

Antonio Moreno (1887–1967) Spanish-American film actor and director

Other rewards do not count, comparatively. The joy of leisure is an illusion. The chief reason for my liking serials for as long as I did was because they kept me constantly at work, whereas feature pictures do permit of a week or more idleness in between.
The True Story of My Life http://www.public.asu.edu/~bruce/Taylor57.txt (November 8 - December 13, 1924)

Faith , Success , Happiness

“The immediate technical cause of the accident was the tearing of the fabric of the outer envelope; this fabric had apparently been embrittled by improper doping treatment. The real reason for the disaster was, however, pride and jealousy and political ambition.”

J.E. Gordon (1913–1998) Materials scientist

Source: Structures (or, Why Things Don't Fall Down) (1978), Chapter 15, A Chapter of accidents

Tear , Jealousy

“Randolph Bourne, horrified at the support of the war by so-called liberals and progressives, had insisted that an unconditionally defeated Germany would become a greater menace to European peace; the war itself, he charged, was the only real enemy of American freedom.”

Randolph Bourne (1886–1918) American writer

Leonard P. Liggio, " Why the Futile Crusade? https://mises.org/library/why-futile-crusade" Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought 1, no. 1 (Spring, 1965) p. 26.

War , Peace , Support , Freedom

“But it was a real nightmare when Walter threatened to kill me and our two daughters if we told anyone.”

Walter Keane (1915–2000) American plagiarist

Margaret Keane, Cited in "The lady behind those Keane-eyed kids"

Daughters

“There’s about 30 full time volunteers here who are really fighting to try to raise the level of true independent art and make a point that this festival has become dominated by real elitist force because they have a top-heavy bureaucrat, just like the American government, just like the major media conglomerates. The guys at the top who are all making a shit load of money and they’re driving the people below them into oblivion, into poverty.”

Lloyd Kaufman (1945) American film director

CraveOnline http://www.craveonline.com/film/articles/507781-exclusive-cannes-interview-lloyd-kaufman-on-nuke-em-high May 28, 2013
2013

Money , Time , People , Art

“The real issue underlying these controversies appears to have been a challenge to his philosophy of music; nay, that of the Trinity. Balamuralikrishna has long held that Carnatic music today is an entity outside the strictly religious domain. He remarked once that those who believed that concert singing denigrated the essence of Carnatic music should confine their singing to puja rooms.”

M. Balamuralikrishna (1930–2016) Carnatic vocalist, instrumentalist and playback singer

Garimella Subramaniam in: "A musical colossus".

Music , Singing , Appearance

“A few months back Major Terry and his pet student, Drosen, had brought in a guy from San Diego to play chess with me. I’d had no idea that he was rated and was really good, so I’d beaten his ass real fast. He’d gotten all mad at Major Terry and Drosen for not telling him that I was as good as I was. He’d accused them of setting him up to publicly embarrass him. I’d had no idea what the big fuss was all about. I hadn’t even realized that there was such a thing as tournaments and championships for chess just like we had in wrestling. I’d quit playing chess at school after that incident. Now I only played at home with my dad’s older friends, Roberto and Salvador Montoya, who’d both been very good chess players in Mexico City. I beat Roberto almost all the time, but his older brother Salvador beat me pretty regularly. And I’d recently been told that Salvador had been so good that he’d once gone to Cuba to play and that he’d come in third among some of the best international players in the world.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

School , Home , Time , World

“True equality consists in each drawing benefits from society in exact proportion to his social outlay, that is to his real capacity, to the beneficent use he makes of his abilities. And this equality is the natural foundation of industrial society.”

Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) French early socialist theorist

Syst. Indus, VI, 17, as quoted from E.Durkheim, Socialism and Saint-Simon (1958)

Drawing , Making love , Nature

“How do I describe the Rajinikanth I know? I would say he is, at the bottom of it all, human. That is the best adjective I have. It is this quality of humanness that stands out. He acts in front of the camera… never behind it. In the sense, he is a natural, unaffected person in real life. He is open, frank, very forthright, very loyal to his friends and family. A great human being.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

Rajini acts in front of the camera, never behind it' (22 December 1999)

Family , Personality , Nature , Sense

“Abjuring love? Real people don’t do that. Now you’re the one who sounds like someone on a stage. That’s not the real world. Real people follow their hearts, wherever it takes them. Real people refuse to be put into a little tiny box. You can say you love me or you don’t love me, it doesn’t matter; I know you have foresworn nothing except an existence you found intolerable.”

Ellen Kushner book The Privilege of the Sword

She really did smile this time. “Now you’re making me sound like a heroine. Be honest, Lucius. For all that you go on about the real world with its real people, you don’t really want to live in it, either.”
Part III, Chapter VIII (p. 299)
The Privilege of the Sword (2006)

Box , People , Heart , World

“We should be committed to ending this spate of gun violence and criminality. We should stop allowing the progressive, socialist left to manipulate us for the sake of their insidious ideological agenda. The problem is simple — doing that takes courage, and the left tends to define courage with examples such as Bradley Manning or Bowe Bergdahl. Real courage, however, is shown by those who don’t merely follow the trend or status quo, but who stand up for that which is right and truly just — and don’t kneel.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, I'd like to see MORE football player protests — NOT less (27 September 2017)

Courage , Problem

“I can sculpt a birthday cake out of shit and insist that I obviously mean cake, that my real intent is to wish you a happy birthday, but my intentions and protestations cannot turn crap into a delicious dessert.”

Laura Penny (1975) Canadian journalist

Source: More Money than Brains (2010), Chapter Seven, If You're So Smart, Why Ain't You Rich?, p. 212

Birthday , Happiness

“That Somerset Maugham anthology Cakes and Ale. How destructive he is, venomous, pulling everything down in biting, corrosive cynicism. Yet somewhere deep down under all the conceit, sarcasm and snobbery is real quivering pain, helpless bewilderment at the inexplicable fact that human nature is chequered.”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

And what perplexes him is less the common, mean element in decent people than the goodness and kindness of wicked, vicious ones.
Broken Lights Diaries 1955-57.

Pain , Nature

“A player from Man City showed half of his ass for two seconds and it was a big nightmare. But this is a real nightmare.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

Comparing Petr Cech's nasty injury with Joey Barton's bottom-baring antics.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/funny_old_game/7004282.stm
Chelsea FC

“I just can’t wrap my head around it – I don’t want to believe it’s real – and nothing I can say will serve his memory any justice right now. I’m just f-ng sad sad.”

Adam Goldstein (1973–2009) American DJ

Samantha Ronson, club DJ DJ AM’s Friends Pay Tribute http://www.showbizspy.com/article/191155/dj-ams-friends-pay-tribute.html.

Memory , Sadness , Justice

“Let us give them a portion of the Evil Forest. They boast about victory over death. Let us give them a real battlefield in which to show their victory.”

Chinua Achebe book Things Fall Apart

[...] They offered them as much of the Evil Forest as they cared to take. And to their great amazement the missionaries thanked them and burst into song.
Source: Things Fall Apart (1958), Chapter 17 (p. 139)

Death , Evil , Victory

“For me, Paul Scholes is on the same level as Ronaldo. The real Ronaldo, not Cristiano. I always thought he was a great player but after I played alongside him I realised he was Manchester United’s greatest player of all time. He did his talking on the pitch which I respected most.”

Paul Scholes (1974) English footballer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkBSmp4IhAE
Fabien Barthez

Time

“Some people have said Brother Khalid was a villain, but we know he was a victim in a world that is evil. Racism and injustice are the real villains here.”

Khalid Abdul Muhammad (1948–2001) American activist

Charles Curtis, pastor of the Mount Olivet Baptist Church, at Khalid's funeral service (24 February 2001), quoted in New York Daily News (25 February 2001) "Khalid Buried Near Malcolm X" http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/khalid-buried-malcolm-x-article-1.910498
About Khalid

World , People , Evil

“The best actors always retain an air of mystery. The boring actors are the ones who give 100 per cent. One will never get to know the real Jude Law.”

Jude Law (1972) English actor

Po-Chih Leong, director of The Wisdom of Crocodiles, reported in John McVicar, "Jude Law", Artnik, London 2006, p. 4.

Law

“An hour of the real thing. Ravi Shankar, a wonderful virtuoso, played his own Indian music to us at the radio station. Brilliant, fascinating, stimulating, wonderfully played. Unbelievable skill and invention.”

Ravi Shankar (1920–2012) Indian musician and sitar player

By the world's most performed opera composer Benjamin Britten quoted in Letter found from Britain's greatest opera composer's drawer shows his love for Ravi Shankar, 2 October 2013, Official website of Ravishnkar Organization http://www.ravishankar.org/,

Music

“For Peake, the weight of moral standards comes from their being part of a tradition, and any tradition lies outside the individual’s potential and needs. Thus adherence to a morality impedes development of the whole self and denies real maturity.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Joseph L. Sanders, “The Passions in Their Clay” Mervyn Peake’s Titus Stories, reprinted in the omnibus edition The Gormenghast Novels published by The Overlook Press, p. 1098

Self-confidence , Parting

“This new language of prayer has to come out of something which transcends all our traditions, and comes out of the immediacy of love. We have to part now, aware of the love that unites us, the love that unites us in spite of real differences, real emotional friction… The things on the surface are nothing, what is deep is the Real. We are creatures of Love. Let us therefore join hands, as we did before, and I will try to say something that comes out of the depths of our hearts. I ask you to concentrate on the love that is in you, that is in us all. I have no idea what I am going to say. I am going to be silent a minute, and then I will say something…”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

'O God, we are one with You. You have made us one with You. You have taught us that if we are open to one another, You dwell in us. Help us to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts. Help us to realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection. O God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, we accept You, and we thank You, and we adore You, and we love You with our whole being, because our being is Your being, our spirit is rooted in Your spirit. Fill us then with love, and let us be bound together with love as we go our diverse ways, united in this one spirit which makes You present in the world, and which makes You witness to the ultimate reality that is love. Love has overcome. Love is victorious. Amen.'
Closing statements and prayer from an informal address delivered in Calcutta, India (October 1968), from The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (1975); quoted in Thomas Merton, Spiritual Master : The Essential Writings (1992), p. 237.

Heart , Idea , Love , Making love

“Our lives are the only meaningful expression of what we believe and in Whom we believe. And the only real wealth, for any of us, lies in our faith.”

Gordon B. Hinckley book Standing for Something

Why do I say this? Faith in a Divine Being, in the Almighty, is the great moving power that can change our lives. With it comes the only lasting comfort and peace of mind. God is our Eternal Father, and He lives. I don't understand the wonder of His majesty; I can't comprehend His glory. But I know that He is intensely interested in our welfare and involved in our lives, that I can speak with Him in prayer, and that He will hear and listen.
Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes.

Wealth , Faith

“Aren’t we all, in one way or another, trying to find a solution to the problem of reality? If I get this job, this girl, this guy, these shoes. If I pass this exam, eat this pizza, drink this booze, go on this holiday. Learn karate, learn yoga. If West Ham stay up, if my dick stays up, if I get more likes on Facebook, more fancy cookbooks, a better kitchen, cure this itchin’, if she stops bitching. Isn’t there always some kind of condition to contentment? Isn’t it always placed in the future, wrapped up in some object, either physical or ideological? I know for me it is, and as an addict that always leads me to excess and then to trouble. Do you feel like that? Are you looking for something? It’s not just me, is it? Do you sometimes feel afraid, self-conscious, lonely, not good enough? I mean, you’re reading this, so you must want to change something. Don’t leave me out on a limb, all vulnerable and exposed. Are you reading this on a yacht, through your Ray-Bans with, I dunno, a pair of glistening Russian sisters and a gob oozing with lobster juice as the sun shines down on you and the sisters smile up at you? And even if you are, especially if you are, is it working, behind the salty tang and priapic pang, is it real, is it real, is it like God is holding your hand?”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

God , Drink , Reading , Girl

“Gerrard will fit in with any club in the world. He’s one of the players in the world that have all what it takes to play for Real Madrid. I want to urge Gerrard to join Real Madrid. If you don’t play for Real Madrid you always feel that something is missing. There is nothing better than wearing Real Madrid’s jersey. This is a big opportunity for Gerrard. I’m not talking money wise, but victories wise. I’m sure that Gerrard has alot of respect towards Mourinho. Steven signing for Real Madrid will be perfect for him.”

Steven Gerrard (1980) English footballer

Kaka on Steven Gerrard, (August 2010)

Money , Victory , Perfection , World

“But speaking about Liverpool and speaking about honouring the champions, this is my time to honour a champion. It is my time to honour Steve Gerrard. It is with opponents like him that I am the manager that I am, because I learn with my players and I learn with my best opponents. I tried to bring him to Chelsea, I tried to bring him to Inter (Milan), I tried to bring him to Real Madrid but he was always a dear enemy.”

Steven Gerrard (1980) English footballer

Jose Mourinho on Steven Gerrard, (8th May 2015) http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/jose-mourinho-on-steven-gerrard-i-tried-to-sign-him-three-times-he-is-one-of-my-favourite-enemies-10236838.html

Time , Learning

“I love Titanic because the love in the movie was pure, real, passionate and unconditional… the way the love story culminated in catastrophe was phenomenal. I love DDLJ and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai for being so over the top and yet so believable for us youngsters… I love Black for being such a sublime love story between and a teacher and his student. It was a love much beyond the ordinary.”

Rani Mukerji (1978) Indian film actress

[And my heart goes to..., http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060217/asp/etc/story_5840755.asp, 2009-04-29, telegraphindia.com]
The Actress' Take On Films

Teachers , Passion , Way , Love

“In many real-world situations, cooperation may be easier to sustain in a long-term relationship than in a single encounter. Analyses of short-run games are, thus, often too restrictive. Robert Aumann was the first to conduct a full-fledged formal analysis of so-called infinitely repeated games. His research identified exactly what outcomes can be upheld over time in long-run relations.”

Robert Aumann (1930) Israeli-American mathematician

" Nobel Prize 2005 Press Release http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2005/press.html" 10 October 2005

World , Game , Time , Relation ships

“I have been thinking of what you say about form... I feel that a real living form is the natural result of the individual’s effort to create the living thing out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown.... and from that experience comes the desire to make the unknown known. By unknown I mean the thing that means so much to the person that he want to put it down - clarify something he feels but does not clearly understand... Making the unknown known.... if you stop to think of form as form you are lost.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Quote in a letter to Sherwood Anderson, October 1923; as quoted in Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life, Roxana Robinson, University Press of New England, 1999
1917 - 1929

Understanding , Personality , Nature , Thinking

“We have praised Taslima for speaking for Muslim women who do not have many spokesmen in the Muslim world. But her real glory is that she has also spoken for the persecuted Hindus in her country - for whom no one speaks, not even the Hindus.”

Taslima Nasrin (1962) Poet, columnist, novelist

Ram Swarup, Woman in Islam, 2000

World , Women , Country

“Since her appointment as a Goodwill Ambassador, Angelina has more than fulfilled my expectations. She has proven to be a close partner and a genuine colleague in our efforts to find solutions for the world’s refugees. Above all, she has helped to make the tragedy of refugees real to everyone who will listen. Angelina’s interest in helping refugees, her personal generosity, and her truly compassionate spirit are an inspiration to us all.”

Angelina Jolie book Notes from My Travels

Ruud Lubbers, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Notes from My Travels: Visits with Refugees in Africa, Cambodia, Pakistan and Ecuador, Foreward (2006)

Personality , Help , World , Making love

“Abstract cleverness of the mind only separates the thinker from the world of reality, and that world, the Forest of Real Life, is in a desperate condition now because of too many who think too much and care too little. In spite of what many minds have thought themselves into believing, that mistake cannot continue for much longer if everything is going to survive. The one chance we have to avoid certain disaster is to change our approach, and learn to value wisdom and contentment. These are things that are being searched for anyway, through Knowledge and Cleverness, but they do not come from Knowledge and Cleverness. They never have, and they never will. We can no longer afford to look so desperately hard for something in the wrong way and in the wrong place. If Knowledge and Cleverness are allowed to go on wrecking things, they will before much longer destroy all life on this earth as we know it, and what little may temporarily survive will not be worth looking at, even if it were possible for us to do so.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

The Now of Pooh.
The Tao of Pooh (1982)

Chance , Search , Learning , Knowledge

“It may be, then, that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Standing by Words: Essays (2011), Poetry and Marriage: The Use of Old Forms (1982)

Way , Singing

“Never have I met another man of such singleness of mind in his devotion to nature as Muir. He lived and moved and had his being as a devotee. … Of himself he took little heed, but no zealous missionary ever went abroad to spread the gospel with his fervor in communicating a love of nature. And with him a love of nature meant an understanding of her laws. He sauntered over the mountains, claiming kinship with the rocks and growing things and gathering them all to his heart. He has told me that he found it necessary, in getting people to listen, to tell them stories such as his immortal tale of Stickeen, but the real hope in his heart was to awaken their interest so they would want to go to nature themselves and to delve into the mysteries of her ways. … Every tree and flower, every bird and stone was to him the outward token of an invisible world in process of making.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Charles Keeler (pages 17-18)
Sierra Club Bulletin - Memorial Issue

Tree , Law , Understanding , Mountain

“The hardest theme in science fiction is that of the alien. The simplest solution of all is in fact quite profound—that the real difficulty lies not in understanding what is alien, but in understanding what is self.”

Greg Bear (1951) American writer best known for science fiction

We are all aliens to each other, all different and divided. We are even aliens to ourselves at different stages of our lives. Do any of us remember precisely what it was like to be a baby?
"Introduction to 'Plague of Conscience'", The Collected Stories of Greg Bear (2002)

Self-confidence , Science , Understanding

“It is at work everywhere, functioning smoothly at times, at other times in firs and starts. It breathes, it heats, it eats. It shits and fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the id. Everywhere it is machines- real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections. An organ-machine is plugged into an energy-source-machine: the one produces a flow that the other interrupts The breast is a machine that produces miilk, and the mouth a machine coupled to it.”

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher

The Desiring Machine
Anti-Oedipus Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1977)

Time

“It is at work everywhere, functioning smoothly at times, at other times in fits and starts. It breathes, it heats, it eats. It shits and fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the id. Everywhere it is machines — real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections.”

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher

from Anti-oedipus: capitalism and schizophrenia, p. 1

Time

“If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true, that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done.”

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

Quote of Vincent's letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 3 April 1878; a cited in The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to his Brother, 1872-1886 (1927) Constable & Co
As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 483
1870s
Variant: Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.

Love , Making love , Sincerity , Disappointment

“Honor to a Spaniard, no matter how dishonest, is as real a thing as water, wine, or olive oil. There is honor among pickpockets and honor among whores. It is simply that the standards differ.”

Ernest Hemingway book Death in the Afternoon

Source: Death in the Afternoon (1932), Ch. 9

Whore , Water , Wine

“Why do the characters in Jane Austen give us a slightly new pleasure each time they come in, as opposed to the merely repetitive pleasure that is caused by a character in Dickens? Why do they combine so well in a conversation, and draw one another out, without seeming to do so, and never perform? The answer to this question can be put in several ways; that, unlike Dickens, she was a real artist, that she never stooped to caricature, etc. But the best reply is that her characters, though smaller than his, are more highly organized. They function all round, and even if her plot made greater demands on them than it does, they would still be adequate.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

E.M. Forster, Aspects of The Novel (1927)

Drawing , Time , Question , Pleasure

“Can it be doubtful that this is still the rule of human education; that the human creature needs first of all to be educated not that he may speak, but that he may have something weighty and valuable to say! If speech is the bank-note of an inward capital of culture, of insight and noble human worth, then speech is precious, and the art of speech shall be honored. But if there is no inward capital; if speech represent no real culture of the mind, but an imaginary culture; no bullion, but the fatal and now almost hopeless deficit of such? Alas, alas, said bank-note is then a forged one; passing freely current in the market; but bringing damages to the receiver, to the payer, and to all the world, which are in sad truth infallible, and of amount incalculable.”

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

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)

Art , Truth , World , Education

“Humor is properly the exponent of low things; that which first renders them poetical to the mind. The man of Humor sees common life, even mean life, under the new light of sportfulness and love; whatever has existence has a charm for him. Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius. He who wants it, be his other gifts what they may, has only half a mind; an eye for what is above him, not for what is about him or below him. Now, among all writers of any real poetic genius, we cannot recollect one who, in this respect, exhibits such total deficiency as Schiller. In his whole writings there is scarcely any vestige of it, scarcely any attempt that way. His nature was without Humor; and he had too true a feeling to adopt any counterfeit in its stead. Thus no drollery or caricature, still less any barren mockery, which, in the hundred cases are all that we find passing current as Humor, discover themselves in Schiller. His works are full of labored earnestness; he is the gravest of all writers.”

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

1820s, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855)

Sport , Light , Nature , Perfection

“I needed to be made to feel that there was real, permanent happiness in tranquil contemplation. Wordsworth taught me this, not only without turning away from, but with a greatly increased interest in the common feelings and common destiny of human beings.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/148/mode/1 p. 148

Happiness , Feeling

“An unjust composition never fails to contain error and falsehood. Therefore an unjust connection of ideas is not derived from nature, but from the imperfect composition of man. Misconnection of ideas is the same as misjudging, and has no positive existence, being merely a creature of the imagination; but nature and truth are real and uniform; and the rational mind by reasoning, discerns the uniformity, and is thereby enabled to make a just composition of ideas, which will stand the test of truth. But the fantastical illuminations of the credulous and superstitious part of mankind, proceed from weakness, and as far as they take place in the world subvert the religion of REASON, NATURE and TRUTH.”

Ethan Allen (1738–1789) American general

Source: Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784), Ch. XIII Section II - Of The Importance of the Exercise of Reason, and Practice of Morality, in order to the Happiness of Mankind

Imagination , Religion , Error , Nature

“Productivity can only be the result of inspiration. When one is inspired, the productivity takes no effort. Manifestation and fruition is the quick and natural byproduct of being in the flow of creation. Creation is the result of inspiration. Inspiration ensures that any action we take, is backed by universal energy, the same energy that creates worlds. So the real question is not how do I become more productive, it is how do I become more inspired?”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Question , Nature , Universe , World

“In societies with fewer opportunities for amusement, it was also easier to tell a mere wish from a real desire. If, in order to hear some music, a man has to wait for six months and then walk twenty miles, it is easy to tell whether the words, "I should like to hear some music," mean what they appear to mean, or merely, "At this moment I should like to forget myself."”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

When all he has to do is press a switch, it is more difficult. He may easily come to believe that wishes can come true.
Interlude: West's Disease", p. 245
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

Music , Forgetting , Appearance , Waiting

“‘It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he does not want to hear.’ To that comment I offer a corollary: ‘Friends tell friends the truth.’ The real problem in this area actually is not the drugs themselves. The real problem is that our citizens and our leaders simply will not look at the evidence, even though it is all around us. Our present policy is exacerbating the problems and will not stand up to scrutiny. What we really need to do is to open the subject to rigorous public debate.”

James P. Gray (1945) American judge

Source: Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs, 2011, p. 15

Truth , Problem , Personality

“It's as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working.... Hell is a collection of individuals who spend their time working on a task they don't like and are not especially good at.... Give them a few drinks, and they will launch into tirades about how pointless and stupid their job really is.... Nurses, garbage collectors, mechanics, it's obvious were they to vanish, results would be catastrophic.... A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble.... It's not clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish.... Real productive workers are squeezed and exploited. The remainder are unemployed and a larger stratum paid to do nothing.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Dr. David Graeber, "Bullshit Jobs," Aug 2013

Hell , Drink , Time , Suffering

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Quotes about real
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