Quotes about shock
page 3

“One does not want glory accepted as a matter of course. One wants to shock and astonish people with it.”

Source: Power of Three (1976), p. 9.

“It seems evident from his unpublished piece that his reading of the Mill-Taylor letters gave Hayek a bit of a shock. He knew, of course, from the Autobiography that Mill had an elevated opinion of Mrs. Taylor. The letters seem to have convinced Hayek that she dominated him. Hayek would doubtless have seen this as a weakness, and he might well have lost some respect for Mill as a result. It may also have provided a convenient explanation for Hayek for why a great mind like Mill might nonetheless “desert” the liberal camp. (Hayek’s hope to lead others to the same conclusion might have helped motivate him to write the book on the correspondence between Mill and Taylor.) Given what has sometimes been said about the dominating personality of Hayek’s second wife, one wonders whether Hayek would later in his life have felt even more commonalities with Mill.”

Bruce Caldwell (economist) (1952) economic historian

"Hayek and Mill", History of Political Economy (2008)

Life, Books, Hope, Motivation

“I didn't find out she was actually the Queen of the Fey until some time later. Bit of a shock, but I think we could've made a go of it, if she hadn't been so dead set on wiping out the human race.”

Tom Holt (1961) British writer

You Don't Have To Be Evil To Work Here, But It Helps (2006)

Thinking, Time, Dead

“Reminding people what in reality it is all about, giving them a theme on which to ponder, creating a shock within them, pulling them out of the delusion of non authenticity, enabling them to become aware of their true possibilities.”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

quote from 1976
1945 - 1970
Source: Tàpies, Werke auf Papier 1943 – 2003, Achim Sommer, Kunsthalle Emden, Altana 2004, p. 25

People, Quotes, Reality

“The Falklands War continues to fascinate me. What a conflict! What an unlikely pair of antagonists! The British have always fought, to be sure. No nation on Earth can be taken seriously in historical circles unless it has had at least one war with the British; it's like not having an American Express card. And yet the very idea of Britain in a contemporary war is a shock. Britain, one feels, fights in history books and not on TV.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

"A Few Points About Knife Throwing", Fantasy Newsletter (1983), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

War, Books, Feeling, History

“If the aim of economics is really to provide the greatest happiness to the most people, than it is rather shocking to discover that economic growth has no net effect on happiness. So what has gone wrong with the neoclassical prospect?”

David Orrell (1962) Canadian mathematician

Source: The Other Side Of The Coin (2008), Chapter 2, Odd Versus Even, p. 75

Happiness, People

“Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother’s, when she feels
For the first time her first-born’s breath!
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke!
Come in consumption’s ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm!
Come when the heart beats high and warm,
With banquet song, and dance, and wine!
And thou art terrible!—the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know or dream or fear
Of agony are thine.

But to the hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet’s word;
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.”

Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790–1867) American writer

Marco Bozzaris.

Death, Fear, Dreams, Art

“I recently published a book about movies I hated, and people have been asking me which reviews are harder to write — those about great movies, or those about terrible ones. The answer is neither. The most unreviewable movies are those belonging to the spoof genre — movies like Airplane! and The Naked Gun and all the countless spin-offs and retreads of the same basic idea… the bottom line in reviewing a movie like this is, does it work? Is it funny? Yes, it is. Not funny with the shocking impact of Airplane! which had the advantage of breaking new ground. But also not a tired wheeze like some of the lesser and later Leslie Nielsen films. To get your money's worth, you need to be familiar with the various teenage horror franchises, and if you are, Scary Movie delivers the goods.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/scary-movie-2000 of Scary Movie (7 July 2000) Reviews, Three star reviews

Money, Hate, People, Books

“The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001 and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men, the shock troops of a hateful ideology, gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the beginning of the end of America. By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation's resolve and force our retreat from the world. They have failed.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Mission Accomplished (May 2003)

Men, Hate, War, World

“Having reached the surface [in the Paris' Metro] I remained crazed for a long time, gathering my spirits. I had the impression that I had been vomited by a monstrous anus after being tumultuously brewed by an intestine. I did not know where I was; as though spat out on to unknown land, a pointless little excrement... And, a miracle!... This shock was a beneficial revelation. One must at every opportunity use the subterranean paths of action and thought, erase the traces, appear suddenly and irrelevantly, endless conquer oneself, never hesitate to sodomize one's soul so that it will be reborn purer and stronger than ever.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Quote from The Secret Life of Salvador Dali - first publication in 1942 - Vision Press, London 1976, p. 210
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1941 - 1950

Soul, Appearance, Time

“And I was shocked to see the mistakes of each generation will just fade like a radio station, if we drive out of range.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Out of Range
Song lyrics

“The politics of control and manipulation can only have a degenerative effect on civilization and stability. When larger systems dominate smaller ones, society and its members must face a host of bad choices, debilitating harm, and dicey outcomes. Once the leviathan has been released, few can really control its movements. So once the damage has become visible, historians can point to the inevitable source of the criminality: the ‘structured order’ of politics, rather than an ‘unstructured order’ of the people. To the gullible, this is a shocking revelation. How could any system entrusted with maintaining order destroy the very thing it had sworn to uphold?”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 91

People

“It is especially shocking that such a tragedy can go on, year after year, with the rest of the world paying so little attention to it. My Christmas message to Colombian refugees and to the millions of displaced people in Colombia is that the world has not totally forgotten them.”

Angelina Jolie (1975) American actress, film director, and screenwriter

"UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie and actor Brad Pitt make holiday visit to Colombian refugees in Costa Rica" (25 December 2006) http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/4590e1674.html

People, World, Christmas

“Here is another example of violating one's nature in the name of nobility, an example that shows the larger dangers of false love. Years ago, I heard Dorothy Day speak. Founder of the Catholic Worker movement, her long-term commitment to living among the poor on New York's Lower East Side—not just serving them but sharing their condition—had made her one of my heroes. So it came as a great shock. when in the middle of her talk, I heard her start to ruminate about the "ungrateful poor."
I did not understand how such a dismissive phrase could come from the lips of a saint—until it hit me with the force of a Zen koan. Dorothy Day was saying, "Do not give to the poor expecting to get their gratitude so that you can feel good about yourself. If you do, your giving will be thin and short-lived, and that is not what the poor need; it will only impoverish them further. Give only if you have something you must give; give only if you are someone for whom giving is its own reward."”

Parker Palmer (1939) American theologian

Source: Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (1999), pp. 48-49

Love, Feeling, Understanding, Nature

“I have often thought, with reference to the late War…that it has shown the whole world how thin is the crust of civilisation on which this generation is walking. The realisation of that must have come with an appalling shock to most of us here. But more than that. There is not a man in this House who does not remember the first air raids and the first use of poisoned gas, and the cry that went up from this country. We know how, before the War ended, we were all using both those means of imposing our will upon our enemy. We realise that when men have their backs to the wall they will adopt any means for self-preservation. But there was left behind an uncomfortable feeling in the hearts of millions of men throughout Europe that, whatever had been the result of the War, we had all of us slipped down in our views of what constituted civilisation. We could not help feeling that future wars might provide, with further discoveries in science, a more rapid descent for the human race. There came a feeling, which I know is felt in all quarters of this House, that if our civilisation is to be saved, even at its present level, it behoves all people in all nations to do what they can by joining hands to save what we have, that we may use it as the vantage ground for further progress, rather than run the risk of all of us sliding in the abyss together.”

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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1923/jul/23/military-expenditure-and-disarmament in the House of Commons (23 July 1923). 1923

Men, War, People, World

“Disclosures about the magnitude of covert State surveillance and well-known examples of intimidation of human rights defenders shock the conscience and require public discussion and corrective action in each country and by the international community. In a democratic society, it is crucial for citizens to know whether their Governments are acting constitutionally or are engaged in policies that violate international law and human rights. It is their civic duty to protest against Government secrecy and cover-ups, the chilling effect of disproportionate surveillance, acts of intimidation and harassment, arbitrary arrests and defamation of human rights defenders, including whistleblowers, as unpatriotic or even traitors, when in fact they may be the most effective defenders of the rule of law. These acts of surveillance and intimidation are hallmarks of totalitarianism, not of democratic governance.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

United Nations General Assembly - Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A-68-284_en.pdf. 2013

Law, Communication, Country

“The Jews might well, were they of such a mind (as I am, lament the disappearance of all those who painted the wooden synagogues in the small towns and villages - oh why haven't I gone to my grave with them!), and the carvers of the wooden 'school mallets' – 'quiet boy!' (and if you should see them in Ansky’s collection, you’ll get a shock!). But is there really any difference between my ancestor from Mohiliev, who painted the synagogue there, and myself, who painted the Jewish theatre in Moscow (and a good theater it is at that)?… I am convinced that, were I to stop shaving, you would see in me a deceptive likeness.”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

after 1930
Source: 'Shtrom' No. 1, 1922, Marc Chagall; as quoted in 'Chagall and the Jewish art programme', by Grigory Kasovsky
Chagall's quote is explaining his relation to the Jewish society and Jewish art history 'Bletlach' (Leaflet - essay in Yiddish)

School, Boy, Painting

“The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying ‘we’ when referring to the United States and, even the ‘shock and awe’ of the initial stages, it was just too jubilant and just a little uncomfortable. And I remember feeling, when I was anchoring the ‘Today’ show, this inevitable march towards war and kind of feeling like, ‘Will anybody put the brakes on this?’ And is this really being properly challenged by the right people? And I think, at the time, anyone who questioned the administration was considered unpatriotic and it was a very difficult position to be in.”

Katie Couric (1957) American journalist

National Press club speech, September 25, 2007. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1902464/posts

War, People, Feeling, Question

“I had one little glimpse in the mirror and it was like an electric shock. Horrifying. It took me three or four days to get over it. On air, the plastic surgeon said: "Would you have anything done?" Oh no, I said. "Do you smoke?" No, never. Soon as the camera was off I took his card and had a cigarette.”

Susannah Constantine (1962) British fashion designer and journalist

Reaction to being aged to a 70-year-old by prosthetics.
God's gift to women (2007)

“Her hair is troublesome and curly … It falls in long, black strands, but each strand has a gentle, complicated undulation travelling through it, like a mild electric shock or a thrill, hat gives it a life of its own; it is visually analogous to a tremolo on a musical note.”

Amit Chaudhuri (1962) contemporary Indian-English novelist

Afternoon Raag (1993)

Life, Music, Travel

“Acosta: This whole notion of they have to learn English before they get to the United States, are we just going to bring in people from Great Britain and Australia?
Miller: I am shocked at your statement, that you think only people from Great Britain and Australia would know English. It actually reveals your cosmopolitan, er, bias, to a shocking degree, that in your mind… No, this an amazing moment…
Acosta: It sounds like you're trying to engineer the racial and ethnic flow of people into this country through this policy.
Miller: Jim, that is one of the most outrageous, insulting, ignorant and foolish things you've ever said, and for you that's still a really… The notion that you think that this is a racist bill is so wrong and so insulting.”

Stephen Miller (1985) political advisor for policy

Exchanges with CNN's Jim Acosta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0izucPBY4k during a briefing on legislation that would seek to curtail legal immigration and create a new points-based green card system (2 August 2017) 2010s

People, Thinking, Learning, Country

“LeDuff’s argument (in Shock Art #37) that an image, once floated on the international art-sea, is a fish that anyone may grab with impunity, and make it his own, would not persuade an oyster. Questions of primacy are not to be scumbled in this way, which, had he been writing from a European perspective, he would understand, and be ashamed. The brutality of the American rape of the world’s exhibition spaces and organs of art-information has distanciated his senses. The historical aspects have been adequately trodden by others, but there is one category yet to be entertained—that of the psychological. The fact that LeDuff is replicated in every museum, in every journal, that one cannot turn one’s gaze without bumping into this raw plethora, LeDuff, LeDuff, LeDuff (whereas poor Bruno, the true progenitor, is eating the tops of bunches of carrots)—what has this done to LeDuff himself? It has turned him into a dead artist, but the corpse yet bounces in its grave, calling attention toward itself in the most unseemly manner. But truth cannot be swallowed forever. When the real story of low optical stimulus is indited, Bruno will be rectified.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“Letters to the Editore”, Guilty Pleasures (1974).

Truth, World, Art, Way

“I really love seeing things go sour, because that’s the way dread creeps into life. A lot of horror films start with a great shock scene. I grew up on that model and it’s great fun, but very perversely, I’m interested in setting up something else, where you’re really engaged with the humanity of the characters — you could be in a normal drama with its own set of problems — and then something else develops. I like this philosophical question: what comes first, reality or your interpretation of it? However interesting that is, and whether it fits in with the horror genre, I don’t know, but I think it makes perfect sense.”

Larry Fessenden (1963) American actor, producer, writer, director, film editor, and cinematographer

Larry Fessenden’s Arty Horror Picture Show Continues with “Wendigo” http://www.indiewire.com/2002/02/interview-larry-fessendens-arty-horror-picture-show-continues-with-wendigo-80532/ (February 14, 2002)

Love, Life, Way, Question

“While in England, I came across Sunday school material produced by a major Christian organization. Many conservative evangelical churches use it. One series of lessons covered the topic of origins. I was dismayed when the text declared that people need to believe in billions of years and evolution. But I was even more shocked when I read that the apostle Paul didn't understand science back in his time as we understand it today. Therefore, they concluded, what Paul wrote was not meant to answer questions about man's origins for today's world! What a low view of Scripture! They're looking on Paul's writings as the writings of a fallible human. But every word in the Bible was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit - it's the Word of God who knows everything!”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Did Eve really have an Extra Rib?: And other tough questions about the Bible (2002)

God, People, World, School

“Now, I’m not saying that we don’t need rules in society. But the question of who makes the rules and on what basis becomes supremely important. Will the rule-making flow from the matrix of voluntary exchange based on the ethic of serving others through private enterprise? Or will the rules be made and enforced by people wearing guns and bulletproof vests with a license to shock or kill based on minor annoyances?”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

People, Question

“That the tragical fate of Tom, also, has too many times had its parallel, there are living witnesses, all over our land, to testify. Let it be remembered that in all southern states it is a principle of jurisprudence that no person of colored lineage can testify in a suit against a white, and it will be easy to see that such a case may occur, wherever there is a man whose passions outweigh his interests, and a slave who has manhood or principle enough to resist his will. There is, actually, nothing to protect the slave's life, but the character of the master. Facts too shocking to be contemplated occasionally force their way to the public ear, and the comment that one often hears made on them is more shocking than the thing itself. It is said, "Very likely such cases may now and then occur, but they are no sample of general practice." If the laws of New England were so arranged that a master could now and then torture an apprentice to death, would it be received with equal composure? Would it be said, "These cases are rare, and no samples of general practice"? This injustice is an inherent one in the slave system, — it cannot exist without it.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Concluding Remarks

Life, Death, Fate, Law

“The temperature was six below zero and it kept me dying on the spot because the blood coagulated and clotted in ugly smears of cloth and skin and the pain hadn't started yet, so when the little fat guy who saw my eyes open and still bright pulled me away from the carnage he was almost in the shock I was going into. Nobody would listen to him. He was a drunk. I was nearly dead.
Sometimes the body responds to a stimulus that can't be explained. He got me upright. I walked woodenly, dyingly. I was sat in an old car. The fat man rolled down the windows. The blood stayed frozen. My hands were numb and I couldn't feel my feet. Idly, I wondered what frostbite was like. Breathing was a thing that was happening, but at a pace that said it could slow, then stop at any time. A dull, squeezing sensation of pain was beginning to gnaw on my insides and I knew that eventually, and very soon, it would grow into a terrible, devastating animal with an awful hunger and I would be eaten alive by it.
I wanted to scream but nothing would come out.”

Mickey Spillane book Black Alley

Black Alley (1996)

Hunger, Pain, Cars, Guy

“Few things are more shocking to those who practice the arts of success than the frank description of those arts.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

“English Aphorists,” p. 123
Reperusals and Recollections (1936)

Art, Success

“He stared at me. “You barely know how to read and you have decided to become a great writer?” he said to me in a voice full of shock and arrogance. I’d finally had enough of him. “Yes!” I bellowed, going into my wrestling stance. “I don’t know how to read, and I’ve decided to become a great writer—WHAT OF IT?””

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Reading

“I think we've turned into a society of craven cowards. I hope that doesn't offend. Actually, I hope it does offend … because, you see, I can still remember the shock of the Rushdie Affair 25 years ago. The very idea that anybody could be killed for writing a book was surreal and horrific. Now we take it for granted that if you say the wrong thing about the religion of peace you'll get death threats and you might actually be killed, so you keep your mouth shut if you know what's good for you. All for the sake of tolerance and diversity, of course.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"A society of cowards" (12 March 2014) https://youtube.com/watch?v=5Z38qqSZZEc · transcript http://dotsub.com/view/597bf8e5-fc95-48fc-b3c7-00ce75f30205/viewTranscript/eng 2014

Death, Books, Peace, Religion

“von Humboldt (seeing a newspaper containing slanderous falsehoods against Jefferson on the President's desk) : Why do you not have the fellow hung who dares to write these abominable lies?
Jefferson : What! hang the guardians of the public morals? No, sir, — rather would I protect the spirit of freedom which dictates even that degree of abuse. Put that paper into your pocket, my good friend, carry it with you to Europe, and when you hear any one doubt the reality of American freedom, show them that paper, and tell them where you found it.
Humboldt : But is it not shocking that virtuous characters should be defamed?
Jefferson : Let their actions refute such libels. Believe me, virtue is not long darkened by the clouds of calumny; and the temporary pain which it causes is infinitely overweighed by the safety it insures against degeneracy in the principles and conduct of public functionaries. When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.”

Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) Prussian geographer, naturalist and explorer

Conversation reported in B.L. Rayner, Life of Jefferson (1834), p. 356. The exact date is not known, but the conversation took place in one of several meetings with the President during Humboldt's visit to Washington, D.C., from June 1 to June 27, 1804.

Pain, Reality, Freedom

“I had seen … the mistreatment and abuse of these elephants … and I was brought to tears. When you look at something like the circus and everyone's laughing and there's color and there's music and everything seems so great, but when you go right behind that door and they're in these crates all day long and then they're getting shocked and beat just so they can get up and dance around on a ball — it was just so sickening. … Stop going to the circus, don’t buy real fur, don’t buy a dog, go rescue a dog. You can’t keep supporting people who are doing this to helpless animals, at all.”

Olivia Munn (1980) American actress, comedian, model, television personality and author

“Olivia Munn's Exclusive Interview for PETA,” video on PETA's YouTube channel (27 April 2010) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9Qcq2j2tKA.

People, Dogs, Music, Color

“I begin my work under the effect of shock, which I can sense and which gets me on the run from reality... In any case, I need a starting point, even if it’s just a speck of dust or a gleam of light.”

Joan Miró (1893–1983) Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist

1940 - 1960
Source: On the Readability of Signs; Miro's path from Mysterious to Comic Pictorial signs, Sylvia Martin; Düsseldorf 2002, p. 67

Reality, Sense, Light

“Today I read your autobiography in two volumes, Living My Life. These two books full of life, shocked me greatly. Your roaring of forty years like spring thunder, knocked at the door of my living grave throughout the whole book. At this time, silence lost its effect, the fire of my life was lit, I want to come to life and go through great anguish, immeasurable joy, dark despair and enthusiastic hope, throughout the peak and the abyss of life. I will calmly go on living with an attitude you taught me until I spend my whole life.”

Ba Jin (1904–2005) Chinese novelist

Dedication to Emma Goldman

Life, Books, Hope, Spring

“Sharpe had no thought of deserting now, for now he was about to fight. If there was any one good reason to join the army, it was to fight. Not to hurry up and do nothing, but to fight the King's enemies, and this enemy had been shocked by the awful violence of the close-range volley and now they stared in horror as the redcoats screamed and ran toward them.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, p. 33
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Tiger (1997)

Fight

“She said out of pity for him, "I shall give you a kiss if you like," but though he once knew, he had long forgotten what kisses are, and he replied, "Thank you," and held out his hand, thinking she had offered to put something into it. This was a great shock to her, but she felt she could not explain without shaming him, so with charming delicacy she gave Peter a thimble which happened to be in her pocket, and pretended that it was a kiss.”

J. M. Barrie book Peter Pan

Source: Peter and Wendy (1911), Ch. 6

Kiss, Thinking

“Most of us saw our therapists every day. Cynthia didn’t; she had therapy twice a week and shock therapy once a week. And Lisa didn’t go to therapy. She had a therapist, but he used her hour to take a nap. If she was extremely bored, she’d demand to be taken to his office, where she’d find him snoozing in his chair. “Gotcha!” she’d say. Then she’d come back to the ward. The rest of us traipsed off day after day to exhume the past.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Girl, Interrupted (1994)

Past

“I believe that the shocking toll of AIDS on gay men in the West was partly due to their Seventies delusionism that a world without women was possible. All-male energies, unbalanced and ravenous, literally tore the body apart.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 69

Women, Men, World

“I had long known that there was something about me that was either violent or frightening for some reason. In certain three-sided clothing store images I had for some years come upon myself, with shock and disbelief, regret, and shame, disappointment and despair, for I am indeed clearly violent, mad, and ugly, all because of intensity of some kind, a tension, an obsession with getting everything that there was to be got, a passion, an insanity.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Sons Come and Go, Mothers Hang in Forever (1976)

Disappointment, Passion, Madness, Despair

“Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror."
I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves.
Mephi replied, "History suggests, not until they are made to.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"An Orison of Sonmi~451", p. 168 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

History

“And he looks down where the soil has been dug and there's a sparkle, and there's a glint in the morning light, and he reaches down and he picks it up with his stubby dirty fingers, and the last thing in the world he might have expected, and here is this, this speck of the future, this tiny little shock that's going to reverberate right to today -- literally till now! He picks it up, and he says, you know, he says, 'My God!”

J. S. Holliday (1924–2006) American historian

And he yells out, he said, 'My God, I think I've found gold!'
About James W. Marshall discovering gold in 1848
The West (1996)

God, World, Thinking, Light

“Now, Pop enjoyed a good beer every now and again, but he ordered his men to cut those hoses with fire axes. Pop had to have a protective detail, because certain people were angry and shocked that someone in law enforcement would do that. But that’s what we want as citizens—that’s what we expect. And so I keep that picture of Pop on my office wall to remind me of his integrity, and his pride in the integrity of his work.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Men, People, Law, Beer

“Just released in 1994 is Christina Hoff Sommers’s landmark study, Who Stole Feminism?, which uses ingenious detective work to unmask the shocking fraud and propaganda of establishment feminism and the servility of American media and academe to Machiavellian feminist manipulation. This bracingly precise, fact-based book should be required reading for every journalist. Sommers is a courageous academic philosopher who was one of the very first to systematically critique current feminist ideology and who took tremendous abuse for it. … Sommers has done a great service for women and for feminism, whose fundamental precepts she has clarified and strengthened.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), p. xvi

Women, Books, Courage, Fraud

“Many years ago, when I was merely a vegetarian, I met the great Cesar Chavez, and he said to me: "If you are interested in preventing animal suffering, the first thing you should give up is eggs and milk, because the animals who produce those foods lead the most unhappy lives. You would do better to eat meat and stop eating eggs and dairy products." I was shocked, since I had no intention of eating meat but had never thought of giving up eggs or dairy products. But when I looked into it I realized he was right, and now, years later, after I have studied the matter up close, I know for certain that he was completely correct about the cruel treatment of the animals raised for such products. The advantages of a vegan diet are enormous for our health, for the environment, for the animals themselves.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

Conclusion, p. 226
The Pig Who Sang to the Moon (2003)

Health, Food, Study, Suffering

“Again she plunges! hark! a second shock
Bilges the splitting vessel on the rock;
Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,
The fated victims shuddering cast their eyes
In wild despair; while yet another stroke
With strong convulsion rends the solid oak:
Ah Heaven!—behold her crashing ribs divide!
She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o'er the tide.”

William Falconer (1732–1769) British writer

Canto III, line 642.
The Shipwreck (1762)

Death, Fate, Strong, Parting

“This latest skirmish in the high art/low art war has played out most fiercely over Mr. Tidwell, who shocked balletomanes when he left American Ballet Theater in 2005, then added insult to injury by joining the third season of “So You Think You Can Dance.””

Danny Tidwell (1984) American dancer

The New York Times La Rocco Claudia. "TV Viewers Discover Dance, and the Debate Is Joined" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/arts/dance/21revo.html?ref=dance#, The New York Times, September 21, 2007 About

War, Art, Thinking, Dance

“In discussing his work [the art of Marcel Duchamp, ] it is necessary to avoid overrating his silence. I hold him in a very high esteem, but I have to reject his silence. Duchamp was simply finished. He had run out of ideas; he was unable to come up with anything important… I would say that even the bourgeois tendencies in Duchamp's work – i. e., a form of provocative, bohemian behavior intended to 'épater le bourgeois'- follow the same path. Duchamp started out from here and wanted to shock the bourgeoisie, and because of that he destroyed his creative powers… The content of Duchamp's silence refers to the aim of leaving the subconscious passive, of developing it. This is the aspect of Duchamp, which is related to Surrealism. The surrealists asserted that they could live with their subconscious; they thought they were above reality, but instead they were beneath it. They thought they could fish in muddy waters…. but to my mind, the images which emerged have a repressive effect.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

Quote in an interview with , 1986; republished in: Joseph Beuys, Carin Kuoni. Joseph Beuys in America: Energy Plan for the Western Man. New York, 1993.pp. 169-170
Beuys refers in his quote to the so-called 'Silence of Marcel Duchamp', the period that Duchamp stopped creating art
1980's

Art, Behavior, Idea, Reality

“The manipulation of public opinion both by governments and corporate media, and the manufacturing of consent undermine the essence of democracy, which is genuine participation. The harassment, imprisonment and killing of human rights defenders, including journalists, in many countries shocks the conscience. But also certain aspects of the war on terrorism and the abuse of anti-terrorist legislation have significantly eroded human rights and fundamental freedoms. In a democratic society it is crucial for citizens to know whether their governments are acting constitutionally, or are engaged in policies that violate international law and human rights. It is their civic duty to protest against government secrecy and covers-up, against disproportionate surveillance, acts of intimidation and harassment, arbitrary arrests and defamation of human rights defenders, including whistleblowers as unpatriotic or even traitors, when in fact they are necessary defenders of the rule of law.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Alfred de Zayas' comments to the remarks made by NGOs and States during the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council Session http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13713&LangID=E Comments by Alfred de Zayas, Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, following the Interactive Dialogue on the presentation of his thematic report. 2013

War, Law, Democracy, Freedom

“They came up and we did Sound Of The Crowd. They were under the impression that I was going to work on what they’d done so far and improve that and carry on. I said, ‘No, I’m not doing that, we’re starting again’, which was a bit of a shock for Phil. He argued about that but I said, ‘No, if I’m going to produce you, you’re going to do what I tell you to do. I will listen to your arguments and consider them, and if I still think I’m right we do it my way or it’s the highway. This is my attitude to everybody I produce, it’s a sort of democratic dictatorship!”

Martin Rushent (1948–2011) English record producer

Way, Thinking

“First of all,” said Dr. Nacozi to me, “I want you to know that I realize you have a brilliant mind.” “Me?” I said, feeling shocked. “Yes, you,” he said. “And maybe you haven’t done that well in school in the past, but this is all about to change very rapidly for you, because the further you go in university life, the more apt you are to find minds like your own. I never had many friends until I got into graduate school. Before that … well, I always felt confused and lost,” he said, laughing. “And not very capable with the girls and in my social life, either.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Life, School, Feeling, Girl

“It is abundantly evident, both from history and from present experience, that the instinctive shock, or natural feeling of disgust, caused by the sight of the sufferings of men is not generically different from that which is caused by the sight of the sufferings of animals.”

William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1838–1903) British politician

Source: A History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne (1869), Chapter 2 (2nd edition, Vol. 1, London: Longmans, 1869, p. 294 https://books.google.it/books?id=hdUJs_S3ezwC&pg=PA294)

Men, Feeling, History, Nature

“When I was informed by the police they had decided to charge me with treason … I was in a state of shock. That I have been found guilty of treason shocks me the more.”

Francis Minah (1929–1989) Sierra Leonean politician

Former Vice President Convicted Of Treason, Sentenced To Death, AP News, en-US, 2018-07-09 https://www.apnews.com/984b27b0479c90a4cb47a13106ad8120,

“And beauty, for confiding youth,
Those shocks of passion can prepare
That kill the bloom before its time;
And blanch, without the owner's crime,
The most resplendent hair.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Lament of Mary Queen of Scots, st. 6 (1817).

Youth, Beauty, Confidence, Passion

“Surrealism was a genuine addition to the repertoire of avant-garde arts, its novelty attested by the ability to produce shock, incomprehension, or what amounted to the same thing, a sometimes, embarrassed laughter, even among the older avant-garde.”

Eric Hobsbawm book The Age of Extremes

The Arts 1914-1945
The Age of Extremes (1992)

Art, Laughter

“Only immediate assertion of leadership by the United States could prevent war in the next decade…The President and the Secretary of State must shock the country into a realization of its peril…”

Dean Acheson book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), Truman Doctrine, Cold War

War, Country

“[On modern art] True psychos stand alone. The only pioneers are those who give voices to the ugliest corridors of their unconscious without fear of censure from any quarter. The acts that ordinary of people commit behind closed doors are beyond the ken of any performance artist. Humans' innate weirdness is far more threating and entertaining than anything the professional shock mavens could conjure. I boggle your conception of a world split between cognoscenti and squares. I subvert the subversive and bury the underground under six feet of its own hypocritical manure. I perform unsolicited tattooing, body-piercing, and ritual scarification upon you. Give vent to your sickest fantasies, but don't call it art. Cornhole Barbara Bush, but only if you want to. Sketch your astrological chart with your own feces, but only if it feels good. If you want to do something truly radical, kill yourself. We'll have one less reader, but the world will be a better place.”

Jim Goad (1961) Author, publisher

ANSWER Me!

People, World, Fear, Art

“I don't know that you can speak of shock … Nothing is too shocking for me. I don't really know what is shocking. When you tell the story of a man who is beheaded, you have to show how they cut off his head. If you don't, it's like telling a dirty joke and leaving out the punch line.”

Roman Polanski (1933) Polish-French film director, producer, writer, actor, and rapist

As quoted in Atlas magazine, Vol. 20 (1971), p. 56, and The Book of Hollywood Quotes (1979) by Gary Herman, p. 26

“I have a need to create works that are not just shocking, or say: striking, smashing – but also such works that can become companions of my various life events, and become companions of other people in their situations. These are the works that I create from the deep need to communicate with my sense and my ideal of beauty.”

Tomasz Vetulani (1965) Polish artist

There is no threat. Weapons and colour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqfjr78Pyfs, video, Galeria Olympia, 23 November 2017 (in Polish)

Life, People, Beauty, Communication

“Sex and politics - sex and politicians. I never understand how any politician gets a shag, really. Can you? A classic example: the David Mellor sex scandal. I bet you're the same as me. We're not shocked by these scandals involving politicians. I bet when that happened, your response was not 'Good God, that's outrageous! A man in his job, he should be running the country, not messing about like this; no wonder we're in a state; terrible!' No, that wasn't the response. You open the paper, you read about that, and you go 'Ha ha ha ha - I don't think so, Dave! I don't think so. In your dreams, perhaps.' The interesting person in that relationship is not him; it's her - Antonia. A woman of mystery; a mystery woman. Antonia de Sancha, always described as an 'unemployed actress'. Unemployed actress? How's she an unemployed actress? God! if you can feign sexual interest in David Mellor, I should think Chekhov's a piece of piss. So, she thinks 'I'm an actress. It's a role. I'll prepare'. She gets to the bedroom situation. He's in a kit-off situation, and there's Antonia giving it 'Red lorry, yellow lorry - Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper'. But the hair - that's the main unattractive thing. What barber told him that suited him? Someone winding him up there. 'Yes, David, that'll suit you, mate: a greasy, oily flap of dirty-looking patent leather, wafting about down one side of your moosh; that'll drive those unemployed actresses mental!' (Linda Live, 1993)”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

Stand-up

God, Dreams, Sex, Understanding

“If the last and the worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked. If, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the “German Firm” stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next.”

Milton Mayer (1908–1986) American journalist

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-35 (1955)

Way

“I just want to say that um, I'm just really, really shocked at like how nice our world is because it's just so nice. Like oh my God! Like, the other day, like I was sitting there and I saw these magazines and they said I was pregnant, and like, it's so true. Like America, believe everything you read. Because, like, you're smart and I'm stupid. Like for real. Come on y'all.”

Britney Spears (1981) American singer, dancer and actress

Sarcastic message delivered in "valley girl" tones, recorded by X17online, as quoted in "Britney, like, totally breaks her silence" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18141662/ns/entertainment-access_hollywood/ at Access Hollywood (17 April 2007).

God, Stupidity, World, Reading

“I found myself at the top of the the ladder, with everything, but with one thing missing: that one thing was a companion. Because, it's cliché to say, but nothing really means anything in the end unless you're really doing what you want to do, and… I walked off a huge world tour, with a yacht and television specials, and record deals, and film deals. I walked away and my whole thing collapsed. I shocked my business world and walked back to my cottage, which I had been renting to two American girls. One of them was Cynthia, and I stayed with her for two days, then her friend Lori came back from Clapton's house, where there had been a party going on for almost a week. Lori came in with another friend, and it was Linda, my Sunshine Supergirl from 1965 whom I'd written all my songs for. We hadn't married then, because she had a child with Brian Jones and wasn't ready for another relationship. And it was good that we didn't marry back then, because my four years of '60's fame would have wrecked the marriage. But we met again, and I went away from fame and into the arms of my muse, my lover, and then my wife, and then the mother of my children.”

Donovan (1946) Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist

Grip interview (1997)

Marriage, Children, World, Girl

“Every night, at exactly a quarter past three, something dreadful happens on the street outside our bedroom window. We peek through the curtains, yawning and shivering in the life-draining chill, and then we clamber back beneath the blankets without exchanging a word, to hug each other tightly and hope for sound sleep before it's time to rise.

Usually what we witness verges on the mundane. Drunken young men fighting, swaying about with outstretched knives, cursing incoherently. Robbery, bashings, rape. We wince to see such violence, but we can hardly be shocked or surprised any more, and we're never tempted to intervene: it's always far too cold, for a start! A single warm exhalation can coat the window pane with mist, transforming the most stomach-wrenching assault into a safely cryptic ballet for abstract blobs of light.

On some nights, though, when the shadows in the room are subtly wrong, when the familiar street looks like an abandoned film set, or a painting of itself perversely come to life, we are confronted by truly disturbing sights, oppressive apparitions which almost make us doubt we're awake, or, if awake, sane. I can't catalogue these visions, for most, mercifully, are blurred by morning, leaving only a vague uneasiness and a reluctance to be alone even in the brightest sunshine.”

Greg Egan (1961) Australian science fiction writer and former computer programmer

Scatter My Ashes http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/HORROR/SCATTER/Scatter.html, published in Interzone (Spring 1988) Fiction

Life, Men, Hope, Sleep

“A psychiatrist today has the power to (1) take a fancy to a woman (2) lead her to take wild treatment as a joke (3) drug and shock her to temporary insanity (4) incarnate her (5) use her sexually (6) sterilize her to prevent conception (7) kill her by a brain operation to prevent disclosure. And all with no fear of reprisal. Yet it is rape and murder… We want at least one bad mark on every psychiatrist in England, a murder, an assault, or a rape or more than one… This is Project Psychiatry. We will remove them.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

Confidential memo "Project Psychiatry" (22 February 1966).

Fear

“Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,
“Oh Christ! It is the Inchcape Rock!””

Robert Southey The Inchcape Rock

The Inchcape Rock, st. 15.

Christ

“And we saw the seed,
The minuscule Sequoia seed
In the museum by the tremendous slab
Of the tree. And imagined the seed
In soil and the growth quickened
So that we saw the seed reach out, forcing
Earth thru itself into bark, wood, the green
Needles of a redwood until the tree
Stood in the room without soil—
How much of the earth's
Crust has lived
The seed’s violence!
The shock is metaphysical.”

George Oppen (1908–1984) American poet

"Return" st. 2, 1962; New Collected Poems, New Directions, 2002, ISBN 0-811-21488-5

Imagination, Tree

“When Mrs. Casaubon was announced he started up as from an electric shock, and felt a tingling at his fingerends. Any one observing him would have seen a change in his complexion, in the adjustment of his facial muscles, in the vividness of his glance, which might have made them imagine that every molecule in his body had passed the message of a magic touch. And so it had. For effective magic is transcendent nature; and who shall measure the subtlety of those touches which convey the quality of soul as well as body, and make a man’s passion for one woman differ from his passion for another as joy in the morning light over valley and river and white mountain-top differs from joy among Chinese lanterns and glass panels? Will, too, was made of very impressible stuff. The bow of a violin drawn near him cleverly, would at one stroke change the aspect of the world for him, and his point of view shifted— as easily as his mood. Dorothea’s entrance was the freshness of morning.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871)

World, Soul, Imagination, Mountain

“By the way, Mr. President, thank you for agreeing to be on my show. I was just as shocked as everyone here is, I promise you. How's Tuesday for you? I've got Frank Rich, but we can bump him. And I mean bump him. I know a guy. Say the word.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Source: White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (2006)

Way, Guy

“My father had served with great honor and courage in the Second World War. He fought for a country that was not only great, but good. It had its flaws and had some imperfections. It was the original sin of slavery which you know which we hadn't completed extirpated because we still had racial injustice in the 50s and 60s and 70s. We had only recently abolished, formally abolished segregation. So I was aware that uh, America had its flaws and defects in its history. But I also believed in the country and believed in its principles. That's the way I was brought up and so I was shocked when I found people who were just openly, vociferously anti-American, condemning not only America's sins but America itself, condemning its principles and pointing in some cases to communist regimes like Cuba as being superior.”

Robert P. George (1955) American legal scholar

2016, Interview with Bill Kristol (2016)

War, People, World, Way

“It may also strike you, my readers, as quite shocking when I tell you that there is no such thing, basically, as disease. There are instead only processes. What you think of disease is instead the result of an exaggeration or overextension of perfectly normal body processes. You are not attacked by viruses, for instance, for all kinds of viruses exist normally in the body. There are no KILLER viruses, then but viruses that go beyond their usual bounds.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Way Toward Health (1997), p. 71

Disease, Thinking

“When I was fourteen or fifteen […] the Yom Kippur service ended in an unforgettable way, for Schechter, who always put great effort into the blowing of the shofar—he would go red in the face with exertion—produced a long, seemingly endless note of unearthly beauty, and then dropped dead before us on the bema, the raised platform where he would sing. I had the feeling that God had killed Schechter, sent a thunderbolt, stricken him. The shock of this for everyone was tempered by the reflection that if there was ever a moment in which a soul was pure, forgiven, relieved of all sin, it was at this moment, when the shofar was blown in conclusion of the fast […].”

Oliver Sacks book Uncle Tungsten

Source: Uncle Tungsten (2001), p. 177

God, Beauty, Way, Feeling

“If the Trump campaign, or anybody associated with it, aided or abetted the Russians, it would not only be a serious crime, it would also represent one of the most shocking betrayals of our democracy in history.”

Adam Schiff (1960) American politician

Open Letter to the Committee Hearing Re: FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers

Democracy, History, Betrayal

“I have nothing and therefore nothing to lose. I have conditioned myself for every conceivable shock and strain – physically, mentally, and emotionally. I fear nothing. No threat or prospect of danger deters me; I’ve faced them all, continuously and by choice. I am willing to suffer with those who suffer, to die with those who die, and to struggle in the most extreme manner for their liberation. I’ve lived the past decade with no pleasures, no amenities, and no entertainment. I’ve conditioned myself for every extreme. This is the level of commitment that our struggle demands, and the level of commitment that I have, and those who share this commitment have my complete loyalty.”

Kevin Rashid Johnson (1971) American prisoner and social activist

Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin Rashid Johnson (2010)

Pleasure, Fear, Suffering, Past

“Five separate pulses of serotonin, designed to simulate five shocks to the tail, strengthened the synaptic connection for days and led to the growth of new synaptic connections… that did involve the synthesis of new protein.”

Eric R. Kandel (1929) American neuropsychiatrist

In Search of Memory (2006)

“People are a bit blind. They don’t see life. Being a photographer I see life, every inch of it. I’m obsessed with nature and animals and the earth; I find concrete things that distract me. Most people are the opposite… they find life boring, squirrels or sparrows boring, whereas I find them fascinating. It has to do with the way we live. It probably started with religion which leads some people astray. To fight over whose god is better has nothing to do with love or spirituality. Perhaps it’s guilt. We are suppressed and spend our time trying to figure out who we are. The most shocking thing I’ve learned concerns abuse, child abuse, animal abuse, abuse to every living creature. There is a world of little Hitlers out there. Slaughterhouses, vivisection and experimenting on animals for no reason is sick. Luckily younger people are becoming more aware.”

Linda McCartney (1941–1998) American photographer

Interview with Linda McCartney http://oobujoobu.tumblr.com/post/10590341050/interview-with-linda-mccartney by Karen Fox, Diamond Hard Music Entertainment, 1989.

Love, Life, God, People

“I reject that criticism because this is indeed another kind of holocaust, by another name. At last count, more than 40 million unborn children have been deliberately, intentionally destroyed. What word adequately defines the scope of such slaughter? [After 9/11] the American people responded with shock, sadness and a deep and righteous anger — and rightly so. Yet let us not forget that every passing day in our country, more than three thousand innocent Americans are killed [through abortion].”

Jesse Helms (1921–2008) American politician

As quoted in Here's Where I Stand (2005)
2000s

Children, People, Sadness, Anger

“The human mind can no more produce an original thought than a tree can bear an original fruit. As well might one cry for an original note in music as expect an original idea from a human brain.
One wishes our friends, the critics, would grasp this simple truth, and leave off clamoring for the impossible, and being shocked because they do not get it.”

Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) English humorist

Dreams http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/jjdrm10.txt

Truth, Music, Idea, Tree

“Richard Wright, an American novelist of the realist school, asks a famous unfathomable question in his best-known novel, Native Son. Who knows when some slight shock, he asks, disturbing the delicate balance between social order and thirsty aspiration, shall send the skyscrapers in our cities toppling?”

Daniel Handler book The Penultimate Peril

Lemony Snicket (351-352)
The Penultimate Peril (2005)

School, Question

“She felt so alien, bowed under culture shock as crippling as migraine.”

China Miéville book The Scar

Part 2 “Salt”, chapter 6 (p. 78)
The Scar (2002)

“In 2014, one of the key agendas of the BJP’s election campaign was highlighting the dismal management of the Indian economy, ironically under an ‘economist’ prime minister and a ‘know-it-all’ finance minister. We all knew that the economy was in the doldrums but since we were not in government, we naturally did not have the complete details of the state of the economy. But, what we saw when we formed the government left us shocked! The state of the economy was much worse than expected. Things were terrible. Even the budget figures were suspicious. When all of this came to light, we had two options – to be driven by Rajneeti (political considerations) or be guided by Rashtraneeti (putting the interests of India First)… Rajneeti, or playing politics on the state of the economy in 2014, would have been extremely simple as well as politically advantageous for us. We had just won a historic election, so obviously the frenzy was at a different level. The Congress Party and their allies were in big trouble. Even for the media, it would have made news for months on end. On the other hand, there was Rashtraneeti, where more than politics and one-upmanship, reform was needed. Needless to say, we preferred to think of ‘India First’ instead of putting politics first. We did not want to push the issues under the carpet, but we were more interested in addressing the issue. We focused on reforming, strengthening and transforming the Indian economy. The details about the decay in the Indian economy were unbelievable. It had the potential to cause a crisis all over. In 2014, industry was leaving India. India was in the Fragile Five. Experts believed that the ‘I’ in BRICS would collapse. Public sentiment was that of disappointment and pessimism.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi, Swarajya Interviews Prime Minister Modi, Interview, R Jagannathan- Jul 02, 2018 https://swarajyamag.com/economy/swarajya-interviews-prime-minister-modi-the-state-of-indian-economy 2018

Disappointment, Nature, Thinking, Light

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity – myself especially – are in a state of shocked disbelief.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

cited in: Quotes of 2008: 'We are in a state of shocked disbelief' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/quotes-of-2008-we-are-in-a-state-of-shocked-disbelief-1220057.html, Jan 01, 2009. 2000s

“I have this heavy addiction to life and I'm told that the withdrawal symptoms are shocking.”

Kyril Bonfiglioli (1928–1985) British art dealer

Source: The Mortdecai Trilogy, After You With The Pistol (1979), Ch. 21.

Life

“…this is not the only time that I have stuck out my neck for a Greek film director. With Nikos Nikolaides I introduced him to Mr Constantini as well, and undertook to send his XXX-rated movie "Singapore Sling" to two of the top film agents in the UK, Jenny Cassarotto and PDF who have now changed their name on account of a merger. Ms Cassarotto was indulgent, but the other agent was so shocked that he treated me as if I was peddling porn. The things I've done for Greece!”

Angelique Rockas South African actress and founder of Internationalist Theatre, London

On helping Greek film directors find funding
Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

Change, Time

“Passing through the utility section [Ivy] considered getting herself a cup of coffee. Then she felt shock and shame over the fact that she was thinking about coffee while her planet was being set on fire. Then she poured herself a cup of coffee anyway and stepped into the Farm.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

"Hard Rain"
Seveneves (2015), Part One

Coffee, Thinking

“Hardly is there anywhere in the United States a church possessing originality which has been built after 1840. The houses of God are usually misplaced gothic or romanesque imitations squeezed in between dismal railway stations or surging skyscrapers. It is even more shocking to see the abortive efforts of town planning, or the utopian habit of naming streets after mere numbers or letters. A cultured man cannot possibly live in room 6489 on the sixty-fourth floor of a house on the corner of 109th Street and 10th Avenue. This may be fitting for one of the unfortunate creatures in Huxley's Brave New World but not for man created in the image of God.”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Pgs 268-269
The Menace of the Herd (1943)

God, World, Effort, Housing

“The realization that American power could and should be used for the defense of pluralism and as a punishment for fascism came to me in Sarajevo a year or two later… That was an early quarrel between me and many of my Nation colleagues, and it was also the first time I found myself in the same trench as people like Paul Wolfowitz and Jeane Kirkpatrick: a shock I had to learn to get over.”

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

2000s, 2003

People, Learning, Time

“In her youth she had indulged a passion towards a young monarch of a neighbouring island, Glanden, whose subjects, though they enjoyed the benefits of fairly-dispensed justice, suffered such disparities of condition, that some of them were born with saddles on their backs, and others booted and spurred to mount and ride during their lives. Shocking! yet countless eyes certified its truth: nay, even the Glandens admit the charge, but deem their island the most delightful in the world, and the most favourable for human improvement and comfort.”

Alexander Bryan Johnson (1786–1867) United States philosopher and banker

The Philosophical Emperor, a Political Experiment, or, The Progress of a False Position: (1841)

Truth, Youth, World, Justice

“I remember when I was a kid at school having to learn a poem of sorts about a fellow named Pig-something--a sculptor he would have been, no doubt--who made a statue of a girl, and what should happen one morning but that the bally thing suddenly came to life. A pretty nasty shock for the chap, of course.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

Life, School, Girl, Learning

“"You've killed me. Why'd you want to kill me," he said, and died. The expression of hurt surprise and wounded reproach and sheer inability to understand stayed on his face like a forgotten suitcase left at the station, and gradually hardened there. Prew stood looking down at him, still shocked by the reproving question.”

James Jones book From Here to Eternity

From Here to Eternity (1951)

Understanding, Question, Hurt

“Simple methods will soon lead us to results of far reaching theoretical and practical importance. We shall encounter theoretical conclusions which not only are unexpected but actually come as a shock to intuition and common sense. They will reveal that commonly accepted notions concerning chance fluctuations are without foundation and that the implications of the law of large numbers are widely misconstrued.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter III, Fluctuations In Coin Tossing And Random Walks, p. 67.

Law, Sense, Chance

“When I did TV shows and movies, the studios did demographic research. They were shocked to find that my audience isn't just men who are too drunk to turn off the TV after football. It's women, too. I don't know exactly why, other than that I've tried to remain true to myself for all these years. I have gone through a lot, and I've been open about it. Maybe they look at me and can see how you can grow up, have children, continue to be sexy, get married and divorced and, though you grew up poor, live the American dream. I'm very blessed. I'm happy for it all.”

Pamela Anderson (1967) Canadian-American model, producer, author, former showgirl

Playboy, May 2004.

Women, Men, Happiness, Children

“As late as 1959, a friend and colleague of Albert Schweitzer defended his unsterile hospital in the following terms: Now to the domestic animals at the Hospital. People have been shocked by the informality with which animals and people mix, and although it is perhaps not always defensible on hygienic grounds, the mixture adds considerably to the charm of the place. The writer was a dental surgeon from New York, who would obviously have had a fit if a goat or chicken had wandered into his New York surgery. He knew full well that at Schweitzer’s hospital “the goats, dogs and cats visit hospital wards teeming with microbial life of the most horrifying varieties,” but he defended their habitation with Africans because that was part of the culture and charm that had to be preserved!”

Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 385

Life, People, Dogs, Cats

“I share the sense of shock and dismay that the entire nation must feel at the despicable act that took the life of the nation's president. On the personal side, Mrs. Eisenhower and I share the grief that Mrs. Kennedy must now feel. We send to her our prayerful thoughts and sympathetic sentiments in this hour.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Televised statement upon the assassination of President John F. Kennedy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyGzVQGgdqw, (22 November 1963) 1960s

Life, Feeling, Sense, Personality

“I read it for the first time in about 20 years this year–-recently. It wasn't so bad. I get it. I get fan mail now from people who weren't really born yet when the book came out. I don't think it's a perfect book by any means, but it's valid. I get where it comes from. I get what it is. I know that sounds so ambiguous. It's sort of out of my hands and it has its reputation so what can you do about it? There's a lot of it that I wish was slightly more elegantly written. Overall, I was pretty shocked. It was pretty good writing for someone who was 19. I was pretty surprised by the level of writing.”

Bret Easton Ellis (1964) American novelist

On Less Than Zero http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=571852

People, Books, Thinking, Time

“There, up on deck, standing in the very entrance to his cabin and silhouetted dimly against the snow, was the figure of a man with shaven head and bare feet, wrapped in a large cape made of crimson felt. The figure knelt down and bowed to Jia Zheng, who did not recognize the features and hurried out on deck, intending to raise him up and ask him his name. The man bowed four times, and now stood upright, pressing his palms together in monkish greeting. Jia Zheng was about to reciprocate with a respectful bow of the head when he looked into the man's eyes and with a sudden shock recognized him as Bao-yu.
'Are you not my son?' he asked.
The man was silent and an expression that seemed to contain both joy and sorrow played on his face. Jia Zheng asked again:
'If you are Bao-yu, why are you dressed like this? And what brings you to this place?'
Before Bao-yu could reply two other men appeared on the deck, a Buddhist monk and a Taoist, and holding him between them they said:
'Come, your earthly karma is complete. Tarry no longer.'
The three of them mounted the bank and strode off into the snow. Jia Zheng went chasing after them along the slippery track, but although he could spy them ahead of him, somehow they always remained just out of reach.”

John Minford (1946) New Zealand sinologist

Source: Translations, The Story of the Stone, Vol. 5: 'The Dreamer Wakes' (1986), Chapter 120

Men, Appearance, Time, Joy

“ Now, to use the famous metaphor by Alfred Korzybski in his Science and Sanity (1933), this verbal world ought to stand in relation to the extensional world as a map does to the territory it is supposed to represent. If a child grows to adulthood with a verbal world in his head which corresponds fairly closely to the extensional world that he finds around him in his widening experience, he is in relatively small danger of being shocked or hurt by what he finds, because his verbal world has told him what, more or less, to expect. He is prepared for life. If, however, he grows up with a false map in his head […] he will constantly be running into trouble, wasting his efforts, and acting like a fool. He will not be adjusted to the world as it is: he may, if the lack of adjustment is serious, end up in a mental hospital. (editor's link) ”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), Maps and Territories, p. 31

Life, World, Fools, Effort

“Men are always far more shocked by the vulgarities of women then women are by the vulgarities of men. It is one of the few monopolies which men consider should be theirs after the emancipation of women.”

Arthur Calder-Marshall (1908–1992) English novelist, essayist, critic, memoirist and biographer

Drummond, William (pseud. Arthur Calder-Marshall). Victim. London: Corgi. 1961.

Women, Men

“The writer does not get from his work as he writes and reads it the same aesthetic shock that the reader does; and since the writer is so accustomed to reading other stories, and having them produce a decided effect upon him, he is disquieted at not being equally affected by his own.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

"Ten Books," The Southern Review (Autumn 1935) [p. 8]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Reading

“My name was out there in the public arena for people to make assumptions on why I missed a drugs test. That stigma is something that may never go away. I go out there and play for the fans and for my family and for myself and to have that taken away from me in such a way was disheartening and something that really did shock me. I'm man enough to admit that I did cry.”

Rio Ferdinand (1978) English association football player

quoted in Rio Ferdinand player profile, Times Online, 2007-01-22 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,291-379094,00.html,

People, Family, Way, Cry

“The Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939, a traumatic shock to me, ended any ambivalence I had about the Soviet Union, and all cooperation with Communists in united fronts.”

Roger Nash Baldwin (1884–1981) American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) co-founder

[Liberties Lost: The Endangered Legacy of the ACLU, Baldwin, Roger, 0275985067, 1971, 2006, Woody Klein, The Roger Baldwin Story: A Prejudiced Account By Himself, Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT, 11, http://books.google.com/books?id=EsJinpB3XYsC&pg=PA11]

Quotes about shock page 3

Quotes about shock
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