Quotes about sign
page 11

“I saw a sign that said "Left Lane Closed." So I went someplace else.”

Jay London (1966) American comedian

One-liners

Octavio Paz photo

“The death of Black Jade coincided with the wedding hour of Pao-yu and Precious Virtue. Shortly after Snow Duck was taken to the wedding chambers, Black Jade had regained consciousness. During this lucid moment, which was not unlike the afterglow of the setting sun, she took Purple Cuckoo's hand and said to her with an effort, "My hour is here. You have served me for many years, and I had hoped that we should be together the rest of our lives… but I am afraid…"
The effort exhausted her and she fell back, panting. She still held Purple Cuckoo's hand and continued after a while, "Mei-mei, I have only one wish. I have no attachment here. After my death, tell them to send my body back to the south––"
She stopped again, and her eyes closed slowly. Purple Cuckoo felt her mistress' hand tighten over hers. Knowing this was a sign of the approaching end, she sent for Li Huan, who had gone back to her own apartment for a brief rest. When the latter returned with Quest Spring, Black Jade's hands were already cold and her eyes dull. They suppressed their sobs and hastened to dress her. Suddenly Black Jade cried, "Pao-yu, Pao-yu, how––" Those were her last words.
Above their own lamentations, Li Huan, Purple Cuckoo, and Quest Spring thought they heard the soft notes of an ethereal music in the sky. They went out to see what it was, but all they could hear was the rustling of the wind through the bamboos and all they could see was the shadow of the moon creeping down the western wall.”

Wang Chi-chen (1899–2001)

Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (1958), p. 307

Homér photo

“We two have secret signs,
known to us both but hidden from the world.”

XXIII. 109–110 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

“You want to win in politics? Stop wasting time being dragged screaming out of hearings and learn to f'ing organize. Signed, Reality.”

Mike Murphy (political consultant) (1962) American political consultant

Twitter post https://twitter.com/murphymike/status/1038557357289033728 (8 September 2018)
2010s, 2018

Patrick Modiano photo
Husayn ibn Ali photo

“Two signs of learned person are: acceptance of other people's criticism, and being knowledgeable about the angles and dimensions of rhetoric and debate.”

Husayn ibn Ali (626–680) The grandson of Muhammad and the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 252
Regarding Wisdom

Thomas Carlyle photo

“Wonder, indeed, is, on all hands, dying out: it is the sign of uncultivation to wonder.”

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

1820s, Signs of the Times (1829)

Laurie Penny photo

“The Bunny brand is a Lacanian play of signs bounding blithely away from any signifiable sexuality.”

Source: Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism (2010), Chapter One, Bunny and Brand

Lee Child photo
Roberto Clemente photo

“Good public relations. When I was a rookie in 1955, I was lonesome and had no place to go. So I didn’t mind staying to sign autographs. I have found people treat you like you treat them.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in “Clouter Clemente: Popular Buc; Rifle-Armed Flyhawk Aims At Second Bat Crown”
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1964</big>

Pat Condell photo
John Berger photo
Ann Coulter photo

“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. (Same with the Texas LCRs, for whom I’ve been signing books for years.)”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

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

“I have a suggestion for Microsoft — no fancy programming required. Just let us users hang out a "Do Not Disturb" sign. Then leave us alone. We're dreaming.”

Ellen Ullman (1949) American writer

[The Boss in the Machine, The New York Times, A15, San Francisco, 03624331, 19 February 2005]

Emilio Insolera photo

“You can see the existence of these beautiful signed languages which are incredibly visual, and they require space, they require space to grow.”

Emilio Insolera (1979) Actor and film producer

Transcript of Emilio Insolera on BBC Radio (October 9, 2017)

Chick Corea photo
Howard S. Becker photo
Francis Escudero photo
Ben Harper photo
Alan Greenspan photo

“[There are] signs of froth in some local markets where home prices seem to have risen to unsustainable levels.”

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

July 2005 http://www.startribune.com/nation/12598281.html, in testimony to the House Financial Services Committee.
2000s

Jacques Derrida photo

“In order to try to remove what we are going to say from what risks happening, if we judge by the many signs, to Marx's work today, which is to say also to his injunction. What risks happening is that one will try to play Marx off against Marxism so as to neutralize, or at any rate muffle the political imperative in the untroubled exegesis of a classified work. One can sense a coming fashion or stylishness in this regard in the culture and more precisely in the university. And what is there to worry about here? Why fear what may also become a cushioning operation? This recent stereotype would be destined, whether one wishes it or not, to depoliticize profoundly the Marxist reference, to do its best, by putting on a tolerant face, to neutralize a potential force, first of all by enervating a corpus, by silencing in it the revolt [the return is acceptable provided that the revolt, which initially inspired uprising, indignation, insurrection, revolutionary momentum, does not come back]. People would be ready to accept the return of Marx or the return to Marx, on the condition that a silence is maintained about Marx's injunction not just to decipher but to act and to make the deciphering [the interpretation] into a transformation that "changes the world. In the name of an old concept of reading, such an ongoing neutralization would attempt to conjure away a danger: now that Marx is dead, and especially now that Marxism seems to be in rapid decomposition, some people seem to say, we are going to be able to concern ourselves with Marx without being bothered-by the Marxists and, why not, by Marx himself, that is, by a ghost that goes on speaking. We'll treat him calmly, objectively, without bias: according to the academic rules, in the University, in the library, in colloquia! We'll do it systematically, by respecting the norms of hermeneutical, philological, philosophical exegesis. If one listens closely, one already hears whispered: "Marx, you see, was despite everything a philosopher like any other; what is more [and one can say this now that so many Marxists have fallen silent], he was a great-philosopher who deserves to figure on the list of those works we assign for study and from which he has been banned for too long.29 He doesn't belong to the communists, to the Marxists, to the parties-, he ought to figure within our great canon of Western political philosophy. Return to Marx, let's finally read him as a great philosopher."”

We have heard this and we will hear it again.
Injunctions of Marx
Specters of Marx (1993)

Dylan Moran photo
Joe Biden photo

“Good morning everyone. This past week we've seen the best and the worst of humanity. The heinous terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut, in Iraq and Nigeria. They showed us once again the depths of the terrorist's depravity. And at the same time we saw the world come together in solidarity. Parisians opening their doors to anyone trapped in the street, taxi drivers turning off their meters to get people home safety, people lining up to donate blood. These simple human acts are a powerful reminder that we cannot be broken and in the face of terror we stand as one. In the wake of these terrible events, I understand the anxiety that many Americans feel. I really do. I don't dismiss the fear of a terrorist bomb going off. There's nothing President Obama and I take more seriously though, than keeping the American people safe. In the past few weeks though, we've heard an awful lot of people suggest that the best way to keep America safe is to prevent any Syrian refugee from gaining asylum in the United States. So let's set the record straight how it works for a refugee to get asylum. Refugees face the most rigorous screening of anyone who comes to the United States. First they are finger printed, then they undergo a thorough background check, then they are interviewed by the Department of Homeland Security. And after that the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, the Department of Defense and the Department of State, they all have to sign off on access. And to address the specific terrorism concerns we are talking about now, we've instituted another layer of checks just for Syrian refugees. There is no possibility of being overwhelmed by a flood of refugees landing on our doorstep tomorrow. Right now, refugees wait 18 to 24 months while the screening process is completed. And unlike in Europe, refugees don't set foot in the United States until they are thoroughly vetted. Let's also remember who the vast majority of these refugees are: women, children, orphans, survivors of torture, people desperately in need medical help. To turn them away and say there is no way you can ever get here would play right into the terrorists' hands. We know what ISIL - we know what they hope to accomplish. They flat-out told us. Earlier this year, the top ISIL leader al-Baghdadi revealed the true goal of their attacks. Here's what he said: "Compel the crusaders to actively destroy the gray zone themselves. Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one and two choices. Either apostatize or emigrate to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution." So it's clear. It's clear what ISIL wants. They want to manufacture a clash between civilizations. They want frightened people to think in terms of "us versus them."They want us to turn our backs on Muslims victimized by terrorism. But this gang of thugs peddling a warped ideology, they will never prevail. The world is united in our resolve to end their evil. And the only thing ISIL can do is spread terror in hopes that we will in turn, turn on ourselves. We will betray our ideals and take actions, actions motivated by fear that will drive more recruits into the arms of ISIL. That's how they win. We win by prioritizing our security as we've been doing. Refusing to compromise our fundamental American values: freedom, openness, tolerance. That's who we are. That's how we win. May God continue to bless the United States of America and God bless our troops.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Weekly presidential address http://www.c-span.org/video/?401096-1/weekly-presidential-address (21 November 2015).
2010s

John the Evangelist photo

“The things we fear most in organizations - fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances - need not be signs ofan impending disorder that will destroy us. Instead, fluctuations are the primary source of creativity.”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

Source: Leadership and the New Science (1992), p. 19-20 as cited in: Michael C. Jackson (2000) Systems Approaches to Management. p. 77

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Hillary Clinton photo
Andrew Sullivan photo
Robert Hunter (author) photo
Simon Stevin photo
John of St. Samson photo
Ferdinand de Saussure photo
Arlen Specter photo

“We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will…authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president’s acts declared unconstitutional.”

Arlen Specter (1930–2012) American politician; former United States Senator from Pennsylvania

Preparing a bill to allow Congress to sue the president in federal court; reported in "[ Sen. Specter preparing bill to sue Bush http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14020234/", NBC News (July 24, 2006).

Zia Haider Rahman photo
Sun Myung Moon photo

“In particular, unification represents my purpose to bring about God’s ideal world. Unification is not union. Union is when two things come together. Unification is when two become one. “Unification Church” became our commonly known name later, but it was given to us by others. In the beginning, university students referred to us as “the Seoul Church.” I do not like using the word kyo-hoi in its common usage to mean church. But I like its meaning from the original Chinese characters. Kyo means “to teach,” and Hoi means “gathering.” The Korean word means, literally, “gathering for teaching.” The word for religion, jong-kyo, is composed of two Chinese characters meaning “central” and “teaching,” respectively. When the word church means a gathering where spiritual fundamentals are taught, it has a good meaning. But the meaning of the word kyo-hoi does not provide any reason for people to share with each other. People in general do not use the word kyo-hoi with that meaning. I did not want to place ourselves in this separatist type of category. My hope was for the rise of a church without a denomination. True religion tries to save the nation, even if it must sacrifice its own religious body to do so; it tries to save the world, even at the cost of sacrificing its nation; and it tries to save humanity, even if this means sacrificing the world. By this understanding, there can never be a time when the denomination takes precedence. It was necessary to hang out a church sign, but in my heart I was ready to take it down at any time. As soon as a person hangs a sign that says “church,” he is making a distinction between church and not church. Taking something that is one and dividing itinto two is not right. This was not my dream. It is not the path I chose to travel. If I need to take down that sign to save the nation or the world, I am ready to do so at any time.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

2009, As a Peaceloving Global Citizen http://www.euro-tongil.org/swedish/english/TFbiography.pdf, page 56.

River Phoenix photo
Ron White photo

“She got convinced in her crazy head that I had sex with this girl in Columbus, Ohio…and I did, and I'll tell you why. When you enter into a monogamous relationship with somebody, you usually do it at a point in the relationship when you're having a lot of sex. So you're willing to sign the papers. "I'll only have sex with you, ever-ever-ever…ever." Well, if that person stops having sex altogether… why, you find yourself in quite a pickle. I'm a pretty good dog, but if you don't pet me every once in awhile, it's hard to keep me under the porch. I'm not as flexible as real dog. And I'll tell you what happened, too. I was in Columbus, Ohio, and I haven't been laid in three months. Three months! You can't go three months without having sex with me. I'll go have sex with somebody else. I know, I've seen me do it. I did a show one night. I came offstage, there's gorgeous woman, maybe 35, 40 years old, long black dress, slit up to her waist, GORGEOUS. Gimme a second. Just…And I walk off stage, she goes, "I thought you were hilarious. I wanna buy you a drink." I'm like, "I can't do that, I'm married." And she says, "I didn't ask if you wanna have sex, big boy. I asked if you wanna have a drink at my place."…Alright. Now, you know of that little guy that sits on your shoulder and reminds you of your prior commitments and your moral fortitude? I didn't hear a peep out of that guy. He hadn't been laid in 3 months either. He was speechless for like 20 minutes then he was like, "Suck her titty!"…"I was gonna!" I was having a 3-way with my conscience. Soon as the whole thing's over, he's back at his post, saying, "That was wrong, mister!" "Hey! 15 minutes ago, you were beating off on my shoulder, monkey boy!"”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

I hate him. He smokes pot. He burned a hole in my other jacket.
They Call Me Tater Salad

Jacques Derrida photo

“Although Saussure recognized the necessity of putting the phonic substance between brackets ("What is essential in language, we shall see, is foreign to the phonic character of the linguistic sign" [p. 21]. "In its essence it [the linguistic signifier] is not at all phonic" [p. 164]), Saussure, for essential, and essentially metaphysical, reasons had to privilege speech, everything that links the sign to phone. He also speaks of the "natural link" between thought and voice, meaning and sound (p. 46). He even speaks of "thought-sound" (p. 156). I have attempted elsewhere to show what is traditional in such a gesture, and to what necessities it submits. In any event, it winds up contradicting the most interesting critical motive of the Course, making of linguistics the regulatory model, the "pattern" for a general semiology of which it was to be, by all rights and theoretically, only a part. The theme of the arbitrary, thus, is turned away from its most fruitful paths (formalization) toward a hierarchizing teleology:… One finds exactly the same gesture and the same concepts in Hegel. The contradiction between these two moments of the Course is also marked by Saussure's recognizing elsewhere that "it is not spoken language that is natural to man, but the faculty of constituting a language, that is, a system of distinct signs …," that is, the possibility of the code and of articulation, independent of any substance, for example, phonic substance.”

Source: Positions, 1982, p. 21

Ramsay MacDonald photo
John Banville photo
Stanislaw Ulam photo

“The first sign of senility is that a man forgets his theorems, the second sign is that he forgets to zip up, the third sign is that he forgets to zip down.”

Stanislaw Ulam (1909–1984) Polish-American mathematician

Attributed in Paul Hoffman, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdős and the Search for Mathematical Truth (1998)
This has also been attributed, with variants, to Paul Erdős, who repeated the remark.

Wynton Marsalis photo
Roberto Clemente photo

“In Canada they no have much segregation. But one day I am signing autographs and talking to white man and his wife outside park, and this other man say, "You not supposed to talk to white woman." I say, "No, I talk to the one I want. I talk to my friends. You believe in that stuff if you want. I don't do it."”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "The Man in the Pirate Uniform: Clemente is Spectacular" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zcxRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NGwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7274%2C5131234 by Myron Cope, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Tuesday, August 23, 1960), p. 29
Other, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1960</big>

Jack Buck photo

“He takes off his cap. He mops his brow. He looks in and gets the sign. He starts the windup. Here's the pitch and it's … A STRIKE CALLED! A NO-HITTER FOR GIBSON! Simmons roars to the mound, embraces Gibson who is engulfed by his teammates as the Cardinals win the game, 11–0!”

Jack Buck (1924–2002) American sportscaster

Calling the final out of Bob Gibson's 1971 no-hitter. Gibson struck out Willie Stargell to secure the only no-hitter of his legendary career.
1970s

Jonah Lehrer photo
George W. Bush photo
Michael Moore photo
Bobbejaan Schoepen photo
Sheikh Hasina photo

“The BNP leader said we kept the people in the dark while signing the memoranda of understanding (MoUs). I have only one question to ask her: Whom did she consult when she signed the defence deal with China? No-one saw what was in it.”

Sheikh Hasina (1947) Prime Minister of Bangladesh

Responding to Khaleda Zia's criticism about her state visit to India (13 April 2017). http://m.ndtv.com/world-news/i-hid-nothing-about-india-deals-unlike-khaleda-zia-sheikh-hasina-1680973

Karl Mannheim photo
Roberto Clemente photo

“I dedicate this hit to the fans in Pittsburgh. They have been wonderful. And to the people back in Puerto Rico, but especially to the fellow who pushed me to play baseball, Roberto Marin. He made me play. He carried me around looking for the man to sign me. […] I dedicate that hit to the person I owe most to in professional baseball, Roberto Marin.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Speaking with reporters, and later on the radio, about his 3,000th hit; as quoted, respectively, in "Roberto Gets 3,000th, Will Rest Till Playoffs" http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rXcqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=TVMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4436,402538 by Bob Smizik, in The Pittsburgh Press (Sunday, October 1, 1972), p. D-1; and in Clemente! https://books.google.com/books?id=n-4qAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT14 (1973) by Kal Wagenheim, p. 23
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1972</big>

Nicholas D. Kristof photo

“Early signs of what the Trump administration may look like: A man associated with white supremacy and misogyny will be White House chief strategist; a man rejected for a judgeship because of alleged racism will be attorney general; and an Islamophobe who has taken money from Moscow will be national security adviser. No, this is not satire.”

Nicholas D. Kristof (1959) journalist, author, columnist

Trump Embarrasses Himself and Our Country http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/so-many-options-yet-donald-trump-picks-the-ugly.html, The New York Times (November 19, 2016)

Barbara Kingsolver photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Andrew Dickson White photo
Garry Kasparov photo
Thomas Brooks photo
Ella Wheeler Wilcox photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Life has its beginning and its maturity comes into being when an individual rises above self to something greater. Few individuals learn this, and so they go through life merely existing and never living. Now you see signs all along in your everyday life with individuals who are the victims of self-centeredness. They are the people who live an eternal “I.” They do not have the capacity to project the “I” into the “Thou." They do not have the mental equipment for an eternal, dangerous and sometimes costly altruism. They live a life of perpetual egotism. And they are the victims all around of the egocentric predicament.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: Life has its beginning and its maturity comes into being when an individual rises above self to something greater. Few individuals learn this, and so they go through life merely existing and never living. Now you see signs all along in your everyday life with individuals who are the victims of self-centeredness. They are the people who live an eternal “I.” They do not have the capacity to project the “I” into the “Thou." They do not have the mental equipment for an eternal, dangerous and sometimes costly altruism. They live a life of perpetual egotism. And they are the victims all around of the egocentric predicament. They start out, the minute you talk with them, talking about what they can do, what they have done. They’re the people who will tell you, before you talk with them five minutes, where they have been and who they know. They’re the people who can tell you in a few seconds, how many degrees they have and where they went to school and how much money they have. We meet these people every day. And so this is not a foreign subject. It is not something far off. It is a problem that meets us in everyday life. We meet it in ourselves, we meet in other selves: the problem of selfcenteredness.

Ward Cunningham photo

“And for two years, we had this sign up saying we will finish this movie and we changed it to 'did' finish the movie.”

Phil Vischer (1966) American puppeter

From Disc Two; Behind the Scenes: Big Idea Tour (00:10:59-00:11:37)
Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie DVD (2002)

Eugene J. Martin photo

“While traveling our separated roads through life, we are also either road signs or potholes on the roads of others.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Cellar Door, Spring 1985, Vol. 12(2), p. 50.

Herman Cain photo

“It's going to be 20 feet high. It's going to have barbed wire on the top. It's going to be electrified. And there's going to be a sign on the other side saying, "It will kill you — Warning."”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

Roane County Tea Party rally, 2011-10-15, quoted in * Cain Proposes Electrified Border Fence
The Caucus
New York Times
2011-10-15
Edward
Wyatt
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/cain-proposes-electrified-border-fence/
2011-10-17
describing his plan to "secure the border for real" with an electric fence

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“2759. If you have no Enemies, it’s a sign Fortune has forgot you.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Adolf Eichmann photo

“I'd like to say something about this last, about this last point of this terrible, terrible business. I mean Treblinka. I was given orders. I went to see Globocnik in Treblinka. That was the second time. The installations were now in operation, and I had to report to Müller. I expected to see a wooden house on the right side of the road and a few more wooden houses on the left; that's what I remembered. Instead, again with the same Sturmbannführer Höfle, I came to a railroad station with a sign saying Treblinka, looking exactly like a German railroad station — anywhere in Germany — a replica, with signboards, etc. There I hung back as far as I could. I didn't push closer to see it all. I saw a footbridge enclosed in barbed wire and over that footbridge a file of naked Jews was being driven into a house, a big… no, not a house, a big, one-room structure, to be gassed. As I was told, they were gassed with …what's it called? … Potassium cyanide… or cyanic acid. In acid form it's called cyanic acid. I didn't look to see what happened. I reported to Müller and as usual he listened in silence, without a word of comment. Just his facial expression said: "There's nothing I can do about it."”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

I am convinced, Herr Hauptmann, [Eichmann is referring to his interrogator, Avner Less] I know it sounds odd coming from me, but I'm convinced that if it had been up to Müller it wouldn't have happened.
Source: Eichmann Interrogated (1983), p. 84.

Lech Kaczyński photo
Stendhal photo

“Signs cannot be represented, in a spy’s report, so damningly as words.”

Les signes ne peuvent pas figurer, dans un rapport d'espion, aussi avantageusement que des paroles.
Vol. I, ch. XXVII
Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black) (1830)

Herbert Marcuse photo
Aeschines photo

“He is specially deserving of our hatred, in that being wicked he has all the outward signs of virtue.”

Aeschines (-389–-314 BC) Attic orator; statesman

99.
Ctesiphontem

Báb photo
Phil Ochs photo
Ian Hacking photo

“From any vocabulary of ideas we can build other ideas by formal combinations of signs. But not any set of ideas will be instructive. One must have the right ideas.”

Ian Hacking (1936) Canadian philosopher

Source: The Emergence Of Probability, 1975, Chapter 15, Inductive Logic, p. 139.

Chris Rock photo

“Shaq is rich. The white man who signs his check … is wealthy. "Ah, here you go, Shaq. Go buy yourself a bouncing car. Bling, bling!"”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

Never Scared (HBO, 2004)

B. W. Powe photo

“Certainty is usually a sign of pathology.”

B. W. Powe (1955) Canadian writer

Substance, Pressure, Beyond, Pulse in Matter, p. 210
Mystic Trudeau: The Fire and the Rose (2007)

Nancy Peters photo

“We're still in a state of shock … We have our "Dump Bush and Cheney" sign in the window, which Lawrence [Ferlinghetti] painted himself. We're looking forward to impeachment or perhaps, indictments for war crimes.”

Nancy Peters (1936) American writer and publisher

"Angry, resigned and motivated -- artists reflect on next four years", http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/11/09/DDG2R9N52H1.DTL San Francisco Chronicle, 2004-11-09.
2000s

Brian Clevinger photo
David McNally photo

“The neoliberal utopia of unrestrained capitalism is being created by a war against the poor and the commons. In fact, the "new enclosures" are a sign that the struggles that marked the birth of capitalism are still very much alive.”

David McNally (1953) Canadian political scientist

Source: Another World Is Possible : Globalization and Anti-capitalism (2002), Chapter 3, The Invisible Hand Is A Closed Fist, p. 69

John Hennigan photo
Bill Engvall photo

“But good Angel, don't I get a warning sign
Before it's my time to go?”

The Angel of Death Came to David's Room.
It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All A Dream! It's Alright (2009)

Ferdinand de Saussure photo
Erik Naggum photo

“I have a cat, so I know that when she digs her very sharp claws into my chest or stomach it's really a sign of affection, but I don't see any reason for programming languages to show affection with pain.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: defmacro question http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/6cd5295c9b463d0a (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Samuel Butler photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“New discord has arisen in Europe of late years from the fact that Germany is not satisfied with the result of the late War. I have indicated several times that Germany got off lightly after the Great War. I know that that is not always a fashionable opinion, but the facts repudiate the idea that a Carthaginian peace was in fact imposed upon Germany. No division was made of the great masses of the German people. No portion of Germany inhabited by Germans was detached, except where there was the difficulty of disentangling the population of the Silesian border. No attempt was made to divide Germany as between the northern and southern portions which might well have tempted the conquerors at that time. No State was carved out of Germany. She underwent no serious territorial loss, except the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, which she herself had seized only 50 years before. The great mass of the Germans remained united after all that Europe had passed through, and they are more vehemently united to-day than ever before. You may talk of the War indemnity; what has happened there? I suppose that the Germans paid, in round terms, £1,000,000,000. But they had borrowed £2,000,000,000 at the same time, and there are no signs of their paying back.”

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

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1933/apr/13/adjournment-easter-1#column_2790 in the House of Commons (13 April 1933)
The 1930s

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is the intermixing of different genres.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Propylaea (1798) Introduction

Andrew Dickson White photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Homér photo

“Bird-signs!
Fight for your country—that is the best, the only omen!”

XII. 243 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

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“While it is much preferable to anarchy, government cannot abolish the evils of the human condition. At any time the state is only one of the forces that shape human behaviour, and its power is never absolute. At present, fundamentalist religion and organized crime, ethnic-national allegiances and market forces all have the ability to elude the control of government, sometimes to overthrow or capture it. States are at the mercy of events as much as any other human institution, and over the longer course of history all of them fail. As Spinoza recognized, there is no reason to think the cycle of order and anarchy will ever end. Secular thinkers find this view of human affairs dispiriting, and most have retreated to some version of the Christian view in which history is a narrative of redemption. The most common of these narratives are theories of progress, in which the growth of knowledge enables humanity to advance and improve its condition. Actually, humanity cannot advance or retreat, for humanity cannot act: there is no collective entity with intentions or purposes, only ephemeral struggling animals each with its own passions and illusions. The growth of scientific knowledge cannot alter this fact. Believers in progress – whether social democrats or neo-conservatives, Marxists, anarchists or technocratic Positivists – think of ethics and politics as being like science, with each step forward enabling further advances in future. Improvement in society is cumulative, they believe, so that the elimination of one evil can be followed by the removal of others in an open-ended process. But human affairs show no sign of being additive in this way: what is gained can always be lost, sometimes –as with the return of torture as an accepted technique in war and government – in the blink of an eye. Human knowledge tends to increase, but humans do not become any more civilized as a result. They remain prone to every kind of barbarism, and while the growth of knowledge allows them to improve their material conditions, it also increases the savagery of their conflicts.”

Post-Apocalypse: After Secularism (pp. 264-5)
Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (2007)

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