Quotes about sign
page 15

Jonah Goldberg photo
Tina Fey photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Michael von Faulhaber photo
Roy Jenkins photo

“First, there is really no sign at all of any significant reduction in unemployment without a major change in policy…Unemployment has probably levelled out but at a totally unacceptable figure. Secondly, contrary to what the Secretary of State said, the post-oil surplus prospect—not merely the post-oil prospect, because the oil will take a long time to go, but the surplus, the big balance of payments surplus, which is beginning to decline quite quickly—still looks devastating…our balance of payments is now overwhelmingly dependent on this highly temporary and massive oil surplus. Our manufacturing industry is shrunken and what remains is uncompetitive…We have a manufacturing trade deficit of approximately £11 billion, all of which has built up in the past three to four years. This is containable by oil and by nothing else. Invisibles can take care of about £4 billion or £5 billion but they cannot do the whole job. As soon as oil goes into a neutral position we are in deep trouble. Should it go into a negative position, the situation would be catastrophic…To sell off a chunk of capital assets and to use the proceeds for capital investment in the rest of the public sector might just be acceptable. However, that is not what is proposed, and what is proposed cannot be justified on any reputable theory of public finance; and when it is accompanied by a Minister using the oil—which might itself be regarded as a capital asset; certainly it is not renewable—almost entirely for current purposes, it amounts to improvident finance on a scale that makes the Prime Minister's old friend General Galtieri almost Gladstonian.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1985/nov/12/industry-and-employment in the House of Commons (12 November 1985).
1980s

Patrick Buchanan photo

“On Bush "Free Trade" policies, the Republican Party has signed off on economic treason.”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

2000s, Where the Right Went Wrong (2004)

George W. Bush photo

“I see unhealthy signs of a new regime of religiosity and conservatism.”

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

Source: What Entropy Means to Me (1972), Chapter 3 “A Woman’s Treachery” (p. 48).

Babe Ruth photo

“You can bother me to autograph anything you want. When you quit bothering me to sign autographs, then I'll know I'm through. Slip me the old apple and a pen. And tell 'em to keep on bothering me.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

Speaking to autograph seeker, as quoted in "'Never Happier in My Life' Ruth Tells Grantland Rice..."

Joseph Joubert photo
El Lissitsky photo
Juicy J photo
Brandon Flowers photo

“Now he's just signed Fall Out Boy, which means more of his attention will go to them that should have gone to The Killers.”

Brandon Flowers (1981) American indie rock singer

"The Killers get a new feud" (9/27/2005), from NME.com http://www.nme.com/news/the-killers/21090
On why The Killer's weren't getting all the attention they deserved from their A&R man

Hans Reichenbach photo
Frank Wilczek photo
Bernard Cornwell photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo
Bill Engvall photo
Kate Bush photo
Lech Wałęsa photo

“I was arrested many times. The first time, in December 1970, I signed 3 or 4 documents. Most probably I'd sign anything then, except consent for the betrayal of God and Fatherland, to get out and be able to fight. I have never been broken and I have never betrayed the ideals or my comrades.”

Lech Wałęsa (1943) Polish politician, Nobel Peace Prize winner, former President of Poland

Aresztowano mnie wiele razy. Za pierwszym razem, w grudniu 1970 roku, podpisałem 3 albo 4 dokumenty. Podpisałbym prawdopodobnie wtedy wszystko, oprócz zgody na zdradę Boga i Ojczyzny, by wyjść i móc walczyć. Nigdy mnie nie złamano i nigdy nie zdradziłem ideałów ani kolegów.
A note to the Polish Press Agency issued on 4th June 1992 after the publication of a list of Communist collaborators compiled by Antoni Macierewicz.
Przerwana premiera, an interview by Jerzy Kłosiński and Jan Strękowski with Jan Olszewski, Warsaw 1992

Tina Fey photo
John Ashbery photo
Edward St. Aubyn photo
Manuel Valls photo

“I say also: watch (…) to any signs that would suggest that there a disempowerment. That those who plunge into Salafism are somehow victims of a great handling as regards sects. No, there is also that part of personal will that you should never rule out.”

Manuel Valls (1962) French Socialist Party (PS) politician

Valls: French Muslims to conduct “all over” the fight against Salafism http://www.archyxx.com/valls-french-muslims-to-conduct-all-over-the-fight-against-salafism/, Archyxx. (July 20, 2016)

Georges Bernanos photo
K. R. Narayanan photo
T.S. Eliot photo
Tom Robbins photo
Paras Khadka photo

“We had bunch of young players and every individual performed when team needed the most. Even junior players stood up on couple of occasions and that is a good sign for future of Nepali cricket.”

Paras Khadka (1987) Nepalese Cricket team captain

Cricketers get heroes welcome The Himalayan Times; February 2018 https://thehimalayantimes.com/sports/cricketers-get-heroes-welcome/

Han-shan photo
Maimónides photo

“We are obligated to be more scrupulous in fulfilling the commandment of charity than any other positive commandment because charity is the sign of a righteous man.”

Maimónides (1138–1204) rabbi, physician, philosopher

As quoted in A Maimonides Reader (1972) by Isadore Twersky, p. 135. A footnote on this page states : tzedekah is translated as both "righteousness" and "charity".

Conor McGregor photo

“I can make you rich. I'll change your bum life. You fight me, it's a celebration. When you sign to fight me, it's a celebration. You ring back home, you ring your wife, "Baby, we've done it. We're rich baby. Conor McGregor made us rich. Break out the red panties."”

Conor McGregor (1988) Irish mixed martial artist and boxer

UFC Go Big press conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VViRqMfStU4 (September 2015) Ultimate Fighting Championship, Zuffa, LLC
2010s, 2015

Ilana Mercer photo

“Profits and prices are the street signs of the economy. Only fools flout them. The much–maligned price system works not only to secure supply but to conserve.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"The Goods on Gas," http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=7 WorldNetDaily.com, July 13, 2008.
2000s, 2008

Lee Smolin photo

“String theory seems to be incompatible with a world in which a cosmological constant has a positive sign, which is what the observations indicate.”

Lee Smolin (1955) American cosmologist

"Loop Quantum Gravity," The New Humanists: Science at the Edge (2003)

Margaret Cho photo
Warren Farrell photo
Vitruvius photo

“The moon makes her circuit of the heaven in twenty-eight days plus about an hour, and with her return to the sign from which she set forth, completes a lunar month.”

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book IX, Chapter I, Sec. 5

David Wright photo

“When I first got to the majors in 2004, female fans held up signs asking me to marry them. Those girls today were what, 13, 14? I'm 23, but that's a little young even for me.”

David Wright (1982) American baseball player

[Sports Illustrated, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/preview/siexclusive/2006/pr/subs/siexclusive/05/22/wright0529/?url=http%253A%252F%252Fpremium.si.cnn.com%252Fpr%252Fsubs2%252Fsiexclusive%252F2006%252Fpr%252Fsubs%252Fsiexclusive%252F05%252F22%252Fwright0529%252F, Prince of the City, Lidz, Franz, 2006-05-22]

Donald J. Trump photo
Eino Leino photo
Tim Powers photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“It is so sad —
So very lonely — to be the sole one
In whom there is a sign of change!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Knight’s Tale from The London Literary Gazette: 31st July 1824 Poetic Sketches - 5th Series - Sketch the Third
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Bill Engvall photo
Boutros Boutros-Ghali photo
Wilhelm Reich photo

“The vital energies regulate themselves naturally without compulsive duty or compulsive morality — both of which are sure signs of existing antisocial impulses.”

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) Austrian-American psychoanalyst

General Survey
The Function of the Orgasm (1927)

Oswald Spengler photo

“p>Romanticism is no sign of powerful instincts, but, on the contrary, of a weak, self-detesting intellect. They are all infantile, these Romantics; men who remain children too long (or for ever), without the strength to criticize themselves, but with perpetual inhibitions arising from the obscure awareness of their own personal weakness; who are impelled by the morbid idea of reforming society, which is to them too masculine, too healthy, too sober.”

Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) German historian and philosopher

...</p>
<p>And these same everlasting "Youths" are with us again today, immature, destitute of the slightest experience or even real desire for experience, but writing and talking away about politics, fired by uniforms and badges, and clinging fantastically to some theory or other. There is a social Romanticism of sentimental Communists, a political Romanticism which regards election figures and the intoxication of mass-meeting oratory as deeds, and an economic Romanticism which trickles out from behind the gold theories of sick minds that know nothing of the inner forms of modern economics. They can only feel in the mass, where they can deaden the dull sense of their weakness by multiplying themselves. And this they call the Overcoming of Individualism.</p>
The Hour of Decision (1933)

“Ask Bill [Gates] why the string in [MS-DOS] function 9 is terminated by a dollar sign. Ask him, because he can't answer. Only I know that.”

Gary Kildall (1942–1994) Computer scientist and entrepreneur

Quoted in James Wallace and Jim Erickson (1991-05-08), "Bill Gates: Of Mind and Money", Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Ahmed Djemal photo
Francesco Berni photo
Gregory Benford photo
Ono no Komachi photo

“A thing which fades
With no outward sign—
Is the flower
Of the heart of man
In this world!”

Ono no Komachi (825–900) Japanese poet

trans. Arthur Waley, p. 78
Donald Keene's Anthology of Japanese Literature (1955)

Charles Dickens photo
K. R. Narayanan photo
Terence McKenna photo
Theodore Kaczynski photo
El Lissitsky photo

“For us [the young artists in Vitebsk, before 1920] Suprematism did not signify the recognition of an absolute form which was part of an already completed universal system, on the contrary; here stood revealed for the first time in all its purity the clear sign and plan for a definite new world never before experienced - a world which issues forth from our inner being and which is only now in the first stages of its formation, for this reason the square [ Malevich's Black and Red Square ] of suprematism became a beacon.”

El Lissitsky (1890–1941) Soviet artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect

Quote from Lissitzky's essay of 1920, 'Suprematism in World Reconstruction'; as quoted by Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, in El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts, trans. Helene Aldwinckle and Mary Whittall (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1968), p. 327
1915 - 1925

Starhawk photo

“Many people boast of going years without a vacation. But this is a sign of trouble — not commitment.”

Robert W. Bly (1957) American writer

101 Ways to Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success With Less Stress (1999)

Emma Lazarus photo

“No signs of life are here: the very prayers
Inscribed around are in a language dead.”

Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) American poet

In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-the-jewish-synagogue-at-newport/

Arun Shourie photo
Dennis Lehane photo
Pauline Kael photo
Neal Stephenson photo

“There was a common saying in the biz/tech world that “A's hire A's, and B's hire C's,” the point being that as long as you continued to recruit only the very best people, they would attract others, but as soon as you let your standards slip, the second-raters would begin to sign up third-raters to act as their minions and advance their agendas.”

Day 18 (This saying was popularized by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in his "Rumsfeld's Rules" document, dating back to his tenure on the Ford Administration transition team.)
Reamde (2011), Part II: American Falls

Daniel Dennett photo

“[W]hat good to us is the gods' knowledge if we can't get it from them? How could one communicate with the gods? Our ancestors (while they were alive!) stumbled on an extremely ingenious solution: divination.

We all know how hard it is to make the major decisions of life: should I hang tough or admit my transgression, should I move or stay in my present position, should I go to war or not, should I follow my heart or my head? We still haven't figured out any satisfactory systematic way of deciding these things. Anything that can relieve the burden of figuring out how to make these hard calls is bound to be an attractive idea.

Consider flipping a coin, for instance. Why do we do it? To take away the burden of having to find a reason for choosing A over B. We like to have reasons for what we do, but sometimes nothing sufficiently persuasive comes to mind, and we recognize that we have to decide soon, so we concoct a little gadget, an external thing that will make the decision for us. But if the decision is about something momentous, like whether to go to war, or marry, or confess, anything like flipping a coin would be just too, well, flippant.

In such a case, choosing for no good reason would be too obviously a sign of incompetence, and, besides, if the decision is really that important, once the coin has landed you'll have to confront the further choice: should you honor your just-avowed commitment to be bound by the flip of the coin, or should you reconsider? Faced with such quandaries, we recognize the need for some treatment stronger than a coin flip. Something more ceremonial, more impressive, like divination, which not only tells you what to do, but gives you a reason (if you squint just right and use your imagination).

Scholars have uncovered a comically variegated profusion of ancient ways of delegating important decisions to uncontrollable externalities. Instead of flipping a coin, you can flip arrows (belomancy) or rods (rhabdomancy) or bones or cards (sortilege), and instead of looking at tea leaves (tasseography), you can examine the livers of sacrificed animals (hepatoscopy) or other entrails (haruspicy) or melted wax poured into water (ceroscopy). Then there is moleosophy (divination by blemishes), myomancy (divination by rodent behavior), nephomancy (divination by clouds), and of course the old favorites, numerology and astrology, among dozens of others.”

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Fareed Zakaria photo

“Strip away the usual hot air, and bin Laden's audiotape is the sign of a seriously weakened man.”

Fareed Zakaria (1964) Indian-American journalist and author

[Fareed, Zakaria, http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12553209/, Osama Needs More Mud Huts, Newsweek, May 8, 2006, 2006-09-11]

Swami Vivekananda photo
Erving Goffman photo
Mark Satin photo

“They first sallied forth in a body of about 500 persons to attack the market place of the village known as Poorwa, where they slaughtered a cow. With the blood of the animal they defiled a Hindu temple. Then they hung up the four quarters (of the cow) in the different parts of the market place. They maltreated and wounded an unfortunate Brahmin and threatened to make him a Muslim… The village of Laoghatty in the Nadia district was their next object attack. Here they commenced operations by the repetition of the same outrage to the religious feelings of the Hindus which they had committed at Poorwa, viz, the slaughter of a cow in that part of the village exclusively occupied by Hindu residents. But being opposed by Hardeb Ray, a principal inhabitant of the village, and a Brahmin, at the head of a party of villagers, an affray ensued in which one Debnath Ray was killed and Hardeb Ray and a number of villagers were severely wounded… Titu’s party went on increasing and with growing confidence they went on killing cows in different places, making raids on the neighbouring villages, forcing from the raiyats agreements to furnish grain, compelling many of them to profess conformity to the tenets of their sect… They openly proclaimed themselves masters of the country, asserting that the Mussalmans from whom the English usurped it, were the rightful owners of the empire… The rebels issued parwanas to the principal zamindars of the district. Their tenor was as follows: “This country is now given to our Deen Mohammed. You must, therefore, immediately send grain to the army.’ In a written report the magistrate of Nadia states that a paper written in Bengali and signed in Arabic characters, was put into his hand, purporting to be an order of Allah to the Pal Chowdhuries of Ranaghat to supply russud (rations) to the army of fakirs who were about to fight with the government.”

About the exploits of Titumir. Narahari Kaviraj, Wahabi And Faraizi Rebels of Bengal, New Delhi, 1982, Pp. 37-38, 43-44, 50-51. Quoted in Goel, Sita Ram (1995). Muslim separatism: Causes and consequences. ISBN 9788185990262

Albert Einstein photo
William L. Shirer photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Ken Wilber photo
Charles Mackay photo
David Lloyd George photo

“The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham said, in future what are you going to tax when you will want more money? He also not merely assumed but stated that you could not depend upon any economy in armaments. I think that is not so. I think he will find that next year there will be substantial economy without interfering in the slightest degree with the efficiency of the Navy. The expenditure of the last few years has been very largely for the purpose of meeting what is recognised to be a temporary emergency. … It is very difficult for one nation to arrest this very terrible development. You cannot do it. You cannot when other nations are spending huge sums of money which are not merely weapons of defence, but are equally weapons of attack. I realise that, but the encouraging symptom which I observe is that the movement against it is a cosmopolitan one and an international one. Whether it will bear fruit this year or next year, that I am not sure of, but I am certain that it will come. I can see signs, distinct signs, of reaction throughout the world. Take a neighbour of ours. Our relations are very much better than they were a few years ago. There is none of that snarling which we used to see, more especially in the Press of those two great, I will not say rival nations, but two great Empires. The feeling is better altogether between them. They begin to realise they can co-operate for common ends, and that the points of co-operation are greater and more numerous and more important than the points of possible controversy.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the House of Commons http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1914/jul/23/finance-bill on the day the Austrian ultimatum was sent to Serbia (23 July 1914); The "neighbour" mentioned is Germany.
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Allen C. Guelzo photo

“I remember a rusher; not on a sports team. A rusher who carried an American flag, the regimental flag of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers. It is an attack on the Confederate fort known as Battery Wagner outside of Charleston, south Carolina, in July of 1863. 54th Massachusetts was an all black regiment, one of the first to be recruited after the Emancipation Proclamation. The attack was almost a suicide mission. the regiment swept up to the walls of the fort. penetrated briefly, only to be driven out with heavy losses. the rusher I am thinking of was the color sergeant of the regiment. his name was William H. Carney. He had been born a slave. He was now a free man and a soldier. He brought the stars and stripes off the ramparts of Fort Wagner, despite being wounded in the chest and leg, staggering back under fire to a field hospital, and there, just before he collapsed, he surrendered the flag into the hands of several others there saying, "The old flag never touched the ground, boys!" Before the first of January 1863 when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation into law, he didn't have a flag, he doesn't have a country. He was a slave; he was an unperson. But in July of 1863, he was a free man. As a free man, there was no symbol to him of greater value than that flag. So you understand that it is difficult for me to understand why people would insult it.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

"Free Speech and the First Amendment" https://www.c-span.org/video/?437511-1/free-speech-amendment&start=150 (20 November 2017), C-SPAN
2010s

Joan Miró photo

“Childhood and magic are married in this poem inscribed in infinity, like traces on walls or cracks in venerable walls, superimposed posters lacerated by wind, rain and poetry; calligraphy and ideograph intermerge in this equation.... in this sign.”

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

1915 - 1940
Source: a letter to art-seller in New York Pierre Matisse, [son of Henri Matisse, 19 February 1936]; the Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives, The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York MA 5020

Christopher Hitchens photo
Amir Taheri photo

“It is not solely by weapons that ISIS imposes its control. More important is the terror it has instilled in millions in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and, increasingly, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Indeed, Jordan’s panic-driven decision to execute two jihadists in response to the burning of its captured pilot is another sign of the terror Daesh has instilled in Arab governments and much of the public. In the short run, terror is a very effective means of psychological control of unarmed and largely defenseless populations. Even in areas far from Daesh’s reach, growing numbers of preachers, writers, politicians and even sheiks and emirs, terrorized by unprecedented savagery, are hedging their bets. Today, Daesh is a menacing presence not only in Baghdad but in Arab capitals from Cairo to Muscat — an evil ghost capable of launching attacks in the Sinai and organizing deadly raids on Jordanian and Saudi borders. ISIS enjoys yet another advantage: It has a clear strategy of making areas beyond its control unsafe. No one thinks Daesh can seize Baghdad, but few Baghdadis feel they’re living anything close to a normal life. Daesh’s message is clear: No one is safe anywhere, including in non-Muslim lands, until the whole world is brought under “proper Islamic rule.””

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

How ISIS is winning: The long reach of terror http://nypost.com/2015/02/05/how-isis-is-winning-the-long-reach-of-terror/, New York Post (February 5, 2015).
New York Post

Frank Wilczek photo

“It is delightful in itself when we are able to interpret features of the present as signs confirming our understanding of the past.”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

Source: Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987), Ch.11 Explosions and Fluourescence (or, Entropy's Revenge)

Franz Marc photo
Don DeLillo photo

“We drove 22 miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the sign started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were 40 cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides -- pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book. "No one sees the barn," he said finally. A long silence followed. "Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn." He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced by others. We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies." There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides. "Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. It literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism."”

Another silence ensued. "They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said.”
White Noise (1984)

“Homo-Marxian puzzles all those who try to work with him because he seems irrational and therefore unpredictable. In reality, however, the Marxist Man has reduced his thinking to the lowest common denominator of values taken from nature in the raw. He lives exclusively by the jungle law of selfish survival. In terms of these values he is rational almost to the point of mathematical precision. Through calm or crisis his responses are consistently elemental and therefore highly predictable. Because Homo-Marxian considers himself to be made entirely of the dust of the earth, he pretends to no other role. He denies himself the possibility of a soul and repudiates his capacity for immortality. He believes he had no creator and has no purpose or reason for existing except as an incidental accumulation of accidental forces in nature. Being without morals, he approaches all problems in a direct, uncomplicated manner. Self-preservation is given as the sole justification for his own behavior, and "selfish motives" or "stupidity" are his only explanations for the behavior of others. With Homo-Marxian the signing of fifty-three treaties and subsequent violation of fifty-one of them is not hypocrisy but strategy. The subordination of other men's minds to the obscuring of truth is not deceit but a necessary governmental tool. Marxist Man has convinced himself that nothing is evil which answers the call of expediency. He has released himself from all the confining restraints of honor and ethics which mankind has previously tried to use as a basis for harmonious human relations.”

The Naked Communist (1958)

Oksana Shachko photo
Donald A. Norman photo
Henri-Frédéric Amiel photo
George Carlin photo
Daniel Webster photo
Kevin Barry photo
Franz Marc photo

“Tis a sure sign work goes on merrily, when folks sing at it.”

Isaac Bickerstaffe (1733–1812) Irish playwright and librettist

The Maide of the Mill (1765), Act i, scene 1.