Quotes about someone
page 7

“Unhappiness. The distinction that lies in being unhappy is so great that when someone says, "But how happy you must be!" we usually protest.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / aphorism 534
Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation

Feeling, Happiness

“I don't want to start singing about things like sex, drugs and swearing. I'm into love, and maybe I'll get more into making love when I'm older. But I want to be someone who is respected by everybody.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Source: Interview with V Magazine, as quoted in UsMagazine: Justin Bieber Talks Sex, Drugs and Turning 18 http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/justin-bieber-talks-sex-drugs-and-turning-18-2012101, January 2012

Love, Making love, Sex, Singing

“We must understand the politics of our community and we must know what politics is supposed to produce. We must know what part politics play in our lives. And until we become politically mature we will always be mislead, lead astray, or deceived or maneuvered into supporting someone politically who doesn’t have the good of our community at heart.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)

Communication, Understanding, Support, Heart

“Never mind, I'll find someone like you,
I wish nothing but the best for you, too.
Don't forget me, I beg.
I remember you said,
"Sometimes it lasts in love,
But sometimes it hurts instead."”

Adele (singer) (1988) British singer-songwriter

Someone Like You, written by Adele and Dan Wilson
Song lyrics, 21 (2011)

Love, Hurt, Forgetting

“According to the Bible, murder should be punished by death. Killing your father or mother (Exodus 21:15), that's punishable by death. Kidnapping (Exodus 21:16) is punishable by death. Cursing your father or mother, verse 17, punishable by death. Causing someone to have an abortion, in verse 22 and 23 of that chapter, is punishable by death. If you kick a pregnant woman and the baby dies, you have to be killed. Vehicular homicide… if your ox kills somebody else, then you are responsible, especially if you were warned and didn't keep it in. I think the Bible would offer the pattern that… we should make our laws by, so to me, that would easily translate into something related to [vehicular homicide]… If you with your car kill somebody, you are responsible, so that would be similar to the ox goring somebody after you have been warned. So I would look at verse 28-29 as something where we could model some laws on vehicular homicide.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

-Edited Version- Pastor Steve Anderson interviews Dr Kent Hovind (Re-upload) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y4J7o62-w8, Youtube (January 22, 2015)

Death, Law, Cars, Thinking

“If someone gives money to Apollonius, and the giver is someone considered respectable, he will take the money if he needs it. But he will not accept a fee for philosophy even if he does need it.”

Apollonius of Tyana (15–100) Ancient Greek philosopher

Epp. Apoll. 42
Letters

Money

“What does opening your eyes and realizing your vulnerability have to do with the knowledge of good and evil? Here's the key: You know you're vulnerable. No other animal knows that. You know what hurts you, because you're vulnerable. And now that you know what hurts you, you can figure out what hurts someone else. And as soon as you know what can hurt someone as, and you can use that, then you have the knowledge of good and evil. Well it's a pretty good trick that the snake pulled because it doesn't seem like the thing that we would have exactly wanted if we knew what the consequence was going to be. As soon as a human being is self conscious and aware of his nakedness, then he has the capacity for evil. That's introduced into the world right at that point.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

World, Knowledge, Evil, Animals

“The first time I felt I was famous was when I went to the movies with my mom. I had gone to the loo, and someone in the bathroom said in a very loud voice, "Girl in stall No. 1 were you in "Mystic Pizza?"”

Julia Roberts (1967) American actress and producer

I paused and I said, yeah that was me.
People Magazine 8/22/99

Girl, Moms, Time

“[I've changed a bit here - see youtube video "Jordan Peterson - Are YOU Antisocial?!"] We have these shared frames of reference, like when we're playing monopoly. Children at three learn to play games, which means that they learn to organize their own internal motivational states into a hierarchy that includes the emotional states of other people. And that means they can play. And that's what everyone does when they're out in the world. That's why we can go about our daily business - we all know the rules. That's why we can sit in the same room without fighting each other. Because you're smart and socially conscious, you can walk into a room full of people and know what to do. If you're civilized and social you can just do it, and you can predict what all the other primates are up to, and they won't kill you. That's what it means to be part of the same tribe. People are very peculiar creatures and God only knows what they're up to. As long as they're playing the same game that you are, you don't have to know what they're up to, and you can predict what they're going to do because you understand their motivational states. And so, part of the building and constructing of higher order moral goals is the establishment of joint frames of reference that allow multiple people to pursue the goals that they're interested in simultaneously. Not all shared frames of reference can manage that. There's a small subset of them that are optimized so that not only can multiple people play them, but multiple people can play them, AND enjoy them, AND do it repeatedly across a long period of time. So it's iterability that partly defines the utility of a higher order moral structure, and that is not arbitrary. It's an emergent property of biological interactions. It's not arbitrary at all, because a lot of what's constraining your games is your motivational substructure and those ancient circuits that are status oriented, which operate within virtually every animal. Virtually every animal has a status counter. Creatures organize themselves into dominance hierarchies. The reason they do that is because that works. It's a solution to the Darwinian problem of existence. It's not just an epiphenomena. It's the real thing. So your environment is fundamentally dominance hierarchy, plus God only knows where you are. And that's order and chaos. And part of the reason people fight to preserve their dominance hierarchies is because it's better to be a slave who knows what the hell is going on than someone who is thrown screaming and naked into the jungle at night. And that's the difference between order and chaos. And we like order better than chaos and it's no wonder. And invite a little chaos in for entertainment now and then, but it has to be done voluntarily, and generally you don't want the kind of chaos that upsets your entire conceptual structure. You're willing to fool around on the fringes a little bit, but you know, when the going gets serious you're pretty much likely to bail out.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

God, Children, People, World

“I am not an artist just someone who paints.”

L. S. Lowry (1887–1976) British visual artist

Interview tapes Cotton & Mullineux

Painting

“Love at first sight? I absolutely believe in it! You`ve got to keep the faith. Who doesn`t like the idea that you could see someone tomorrow and she could be the love of your life? It`s very romantic.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

Love, Life, Faith, Idea

“MALCOLM X: Freedom, justice and equality are our principal ambitions. And to faithfully serve and follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the guiding goal of every Muslim. Mr. Muhammad teaches us the knowledge of our own selves, and of our own people. He cleans us up--morally, mentally and spiritually--and he reforms us of the vices that have blinded us here in the Western society. He stops black men from getting drunk, stops their dope addiction if they had it, stops nicotine, gambling, stealing, lying, cheating, fornication, adultery, prostitution, juvenile delinquency. I think of this whenever somebody talks about someone investigating us. Why investigate the Honorable Elijah Muhammad? They should subsidize him. He's cleaning up the mess that white men have made. He's saving the Government millions of dollars, taking black men off of welfare, showing them how to do something for themselves. And Mr. Muhammad teaches us love for our own kind. The white man has taught the black people in this country to hate themselves as inferior, to hate each other, to be divided against each other. Messenger Muhammad restores our love for our own kind, which enables us to work together in unity and harmony. He shows us how to pool our financial resources and our talents, then to work together toward a common objective. Among other things, we have small businesses in most major cities in this country, and we want to create many more. We are taught by Mr. Muhammad that it is very important to improve the black man's economy, and his thrift. But to do this, we must have land of our own. The brainwashed black man can never learn to stand on his own two feet until he is on his own. We must learn to become our own producers, manufacturers and traders; we must have industry of our own, to employ our own. The white man resists this because he wants to keep the black man under his thumb and jurisdiction in white society. He wants to keep the black man always dependent and begging--for jobs, food, clothes, shelter, education. The white man doesn't want to lose somebody to be supreme over. He wants to keep the black man where he can be watched and retarded.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Mr. Muhammad teaches that as soon as we separate from the white man, we will learn that we can do without the white man just as he can do without us. The white man knows that once black men get off to themselves and learn they can do for themselves, the black man's full potential will explode and he will surpass the white man.
Playboy interview, regarding the ambition of the Black Muslims
Attributed

Love, Men, Hate, People

“I used to look at homeless peopleand try to imagine what they had once looked like. It's not easy. Beneath the grime and degradation is a face once adored by someone. It's a truth that tricks the eye; our glances slide away. But something happened to ruin that life, to strip it bare; and it was something small, something that but for the grace of God could take us, too.”

John Hart (1965) American author with multiple books and awards

Source: The King of Lies (2006), Ch. 2.

Life, God, Truth, Imagination

“Shouldn't someone tag Mr. Kennedy's "bold new imaginative" program with its proper age? Under the tousled boyish haircut it is still old Karl Marx — first launched a century ago. There is nothing new in the idea of a government being Big Brother to us all. Hitler called his "State Socialism" and way before him it was "benevolent monarchy."”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

In a 1960 letter to the GOP presidential candidate Richard Nixon, quoted in Matthew Dallek's The Right Moment: Ronald Reagan's First Victory and the Decisive Turning Point in American Politics (2000), p. 38
1960s

Age, Way, Imagination, Idea

“Only a shipwrecked person who has just escaped drowning could understand the psychology of someone who breaks out in laughter just because he is able to breathe.”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Part 3, Ch. 31
The Woman in the Dunes (1962)

Understanding, Laughter, Personality

“Why do you think ideological thought is pushed so heavily at the universities? 1/3 laziness, 1/3 ignorance and 1/3 malevolence. Laziness: it's easier to apply a doctrine to everything at once than to think through complex issues; Ignorance: the less you know about a problem, the easier you think it is to solve; Malevolence: it's great to find the enemy in others so that you have someone against who to direct your resentment.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Problem, Thinking, Universe

“If the Royal Family was going to assassinate someone, they would have gotten rid of me a long time ago.”

John Lydon (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

On the 2003 panel TV show The Belzer Connection, when asked if there was a conspiracy in the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Family, Time

“The day before is what we bring to the day we're actually living through, life is a matter of carrying along all those days-before just as someone might carry stones, and when we can no longer cope with the load, the work is done.”

José Saramago book The Cave

Page 61, 2002 (Harvest Hardcover edition)
The Cave (2000)

Life

“Many if not most of his decisions are thrust upon the president, out of the blue, by events beyond his control: oil spills, financial panics, pandemics, earthquakes, fires, coups, invasions, underwear bombers, movie-theater shooters, and on and on and on. They don’t order themselves neatly for his consideration but come in waves, jumbled on top of each other. “Nothing comes to my desk that is perfectly solvable,” Obama said at one point. “Otherwise, someone else would have solved it. So you wind up dealing with probabilities. Any given decision you make you’ll wind up with a 30 to 40 percent chance that it isn’t going to work. You have to own that and feel comfortable with the way you made the decision. You can’t be paralyzed by the fact that it might not work out.” On top of all of this, after you have made your decision, you need to feign total certainty about it. People being led do not want to think probabilistically.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Michael Lewis, "Obama's Way" https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama, Vanity Fair, (October 2012). 2012

People, Way, Feeling, Thinking

“Ideologues assume the problems of the world are someone else's fault. Or they assume that broadscale systemic change (according to their dictates) is a prerequisite to Utopia. A truly religious person tries to change him or herself, which is a more difficult and less grand task.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

World, Problem, Change, Personality

““The dominance hierarchy is a mechanism that selects heroes and breeds them. And so then we watch that for six million years. We start to understand what it means to be the hero. We start to tell stories about that, and so then not only are we genetically aiming at that with the dominance hierarchies - the selection mechanism mediated by female choice - but our stories are trying to push us in that direction. And so then we say, 'Well, look, that person is admirable.' We tell a story about him. And then we say, 'This person is admirable,' and we tell a story about him. And at the same time we talk about the people who aren't admirable. And then we start having admirable and non-admirable as categories. And out of that you get something like good and evil. And then you can start to imagine the perfect person. You take ten admirable people and you pull out someone who is meta-admirable. And that's a hero. That becomes a religious figure across time. That becomes a savior or a messiah across time as we conceptualize what the ideal person is. In the West here's how we figured it out: we said that the ideal man is the person that tells the truth. And what that means is that it's the best way of climbing up any possible dominance hierarchy in the way that's most stable and most lasting. That's the conclusion of Western culture."”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

People, Truth, Way, Imagination

“This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He'll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then brag about "I'm the only Negro out here." "I'm the only one on my job." "I'm the only one in this school." You're nothing but a house Negro. And if someone comes to you right now and says, "Let's separate," you say the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. "What you mean, separate? From America, this good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?"”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

I mean, this is what you say. "I ain't left nothing in Africa," that's what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.
Malcolm X Speaks (1965)

Love, School, Time, Housing

“Every single one of us possesses the strength to attempt something he isn't sure he can accomplish. It can be running a mile, or a 10K race, or 100 miles. It can be changing a career, losing 5 pounds, or telling someone you love her”

Scott Jurek (1973) American ultramarthon runner

or him
Source: Eat and Run (2012), Ch. 11, pp. 100-101

Love, Change

“One of Ivan the Terrible's mistakes was to overlook the five great feudal families. If he had annihilated those five families, there would definitely have been no Time of Troubles. But Ivan the Terrible would execute someone and then spend a long time repenting and praying. God got in his way in this matter. He ought to have been still more decisive!”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Moskovskie novosti, no. 32, 7 August 1988
Contemporary witnesses

God, Family, Way, Decision

“Since age twelve, I've felt like I'm someone else,'cause I hung my original self from the top bunk with a belt.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"My Name Is" (Track 2).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)

Age

“Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1930s, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness.

Men, People, World, Way

“It's not just women in film, 18-year-old girls feel pressure to do preventative injecting. I see someone's face, someone's body who'd had children and I think they're the song lines of your experience, and why would you want to eradicate that? I look at people sort of entombing themselves and all you see is little pin holes of terror… and you think, just live your life, death is not going to be any easier just because your face can't move.”

Cate Blanchett (1969) Australian actress

Motherhood, Hollywood and Cate, The Age, 9 May 2005 http://www.theage.com.au/news/TV--Radio/Cate-on-Denton/2005/05/09/1115584884935.html,

Life, Death, Women, Children

“I studied economics and made it my career for two reasons. The subject was and is intellectually fascinating and challenging, particularly to someone with taste and talent for theoretical reasoning and quantitative analysis. At the same time it offered the hope, as it still does, that improved understanding could better the lot of mankind.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

"James Tobin - Biographical" (1981)

Hope, Understanding, Study, Time

“My way of thinking is often so wrong, so untenable, because I think as if I were talking to someone else.”

Peter Handke (1942) Austrian writer, playwright and film director

Source: Das Gewicht der Welt [The Weight of the World], p. 9

Way, Thinking

“They bring me faith like a closed package in someone else's plate. They want me to accept it so that I don't open it.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Trazem-me a fé como um embrulho fechado numa salva alheia. Querem que o aceite para que não o abra.

Faith

“When you see someone who is great without God’s character, don’t admire him – pray for him because the beginner is not the owner but the finisher… The beginning and middle are off-record; the end is what will put the record straight.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

God

“…Everybody likes sex. The world would be a better place if people just engaged in sex and didn’t worry about it. But what I prefer is that even if someone feels hedonistic, they don’t look it. Curiosity about sex is much more interesting to me than domination. Like, Britney and Paris and Pamela might be someone’s definition of sexy, but they’re not mine. My clothes are not hot. Never. Never.”

Marc Jacobs (1963) American fashion designer

Larocca, Amy (2005). "Marc Jacobs' Paradoxial Triumph" http://www.nymag.com/nymetro/shopping/fashion/12544/ NYMag.com (accessed April 19, 2007)

People, World, Sex, Feeling

“Judas' is a metaphor and an analogy about forgiveness and betrayal and things that haunt you in your life, and how I believe that it's the darkness in your life that ultimately shines and illuminates the greater light that you have upon you. … Someone once said to me, 'If you have no shadows then you're not standing in the light.' So the song is about washing the feet of both good and evil, and understanding and forgiving the demons from your past in order to move into the greatness of your future … I just like really aggressive metaphors — harder, thicker, darker — and my fans do as well. So it is a very challenging and aggressive metaphor, but it is a metaphor.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Lady Gaga Says 'Judas' Video 'Celebrates Faith' in MTV News (26 Apr 26 2011) http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1662707/lady-gaga-judas-music-video.jhtml.

Life, Forgiveness, Understanding, Light

“The field Negro was beaten from morning to night; he lived in a shack, in a hut; he wore old, castoff clothes. He hated his master. I say he hated his master. He was intelligent. That house Negro loved his master, but that field Negro — remember, they were in the majority, and they hated the master. When the house caught on fire, he didn't try to put it out; that field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze. When the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that he'd die. If someone came to the field Negro and said, "Let's separate, let's run," he didn't say, "Where we going?"”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

He'd say, "Any place is better than here."
Speech (9 November 1963). p. 11.
Malcolm X Speaks (1965)

Love, Hate, Intelligence, Housing

“A diamond was laying in the street covered with dirt. Many fools passed by. Someone who knew diamonds picked it up.”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

Sakhi, 171; translation by Yashwant K. Malaiya based on that of Puran Sahib.
Bijak

Fools

“Here you should be guided by the words of St. Paul, I Corinthians 7 [:4–5], “The husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does; likewise the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does. Do not deprive each other, except by agreement,” etc. Notice that St. Paul forbids either party to deprive the other, for by the marriage vow each submits his body to the other in conjugal duty. When one resists the other and refuses the conjugal duty she is robbing the other of the body she had bestowed upon him. This is really contrary to marriage, and dissolves the marriage. For this reason the civil government must compel the wife, or put her to death. If the government fails to act, the husband must reason that his wife has been stolen away and slain by robbers; he must seek another. We would certainly have to accept it if someone’s life were taken from him. Why then should we not also accept it if a wife steals herself away from her husband, or is stolen away by others?”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

The Estate of Marriage, 1522, translated by Walther I. Brandt, from Luther's Works, Vol. 45, pp. 32-34); as quoted in Martin Luther: Execute Adulterers, Witches, Frigid Wives, & Prostitutes, Pagadian Diocese http://www.pagadiandiocese.org/2017/10/30/martin-luther-execute-adulterers-witches-frigid-wives-prostitutes/, October 26, 2017, Dave Armstrong

Life, Death, Marriage

“When someone is drowning, you have to approach them extremely carefully. This is because, if they are panicking and they grab you, then you both drown. And that's stupid, because you both drown. That's a really good metaphor for trying to help someone. When people are in real trouble, some of it is that they're confused, some of it is that their life has collapsed around them, and there's some malevolence there and some desire for vengeance (it's one dangerous mess). If you're going to wade in there unprepared, the possibility that they're going to take you down compared with you elevating them is very high, because you don't even know what your damn psychological stability rests on. You might be sane just because you're lucky and surrounded by good people. That doesn't mean that you have the psychological wherewithal to pull someone up from the depths of the underworld, especially if they have one foot in hell. You should bloody well be careful about doing that kind of thing. It's hubristic to attempt it, and I would definitely caution people – be very careful about rescuing people who don't want to be rescued. It's very dangerous activity, and it can easily be counterproductive.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Life, People, Stupidity, Hell

“And in my own life, in this country, and as President, I have learned that our identities do not have to be defined by putting someone else down, but can be enhanced by lifting somebody else up. They don’t have to be defined in opposition to others, but rather by a belief in liberty and equality and justice and fairness. […] But my faith in those principles does force me to expand my moral imagination and to recognize that I can best serve my own people, I can best look after my own daughters, by making sure that my actions seek what is right for all people and all children, and your daughters and your sons.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, United Nations Address (September 2016)

Life, Children, People, Faith

“What a man really says when he says that someone else can be persuaded by force, is that he himself is incapable of more rational means of communication.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

Quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter.

Communication

“JG: Can I ask what your feelings are about God?
EV: Sure. I think it's like a movie that was way too popular. It's a story that's been told too many times and just doesn't mean anything. Man lived on the planet -- [placing his fingers an inch apart], this is 5000 years of semi-recorded history. And God and the Bible, that came in somewhere around the middle, maybe 2000. This is the last 2000, this is what we're about to celebrate [indicating about an 1/8th of an inch with his fingers]. Now, humans, in some shape or form, have been on the earth for three million years [pointing across the room to indicate the distance]. So, all this time, from there [gesturing toward the other side of the room], to here [indicating the 1/8th of an inch], there was no God, there was no story, there was no myth and people lived on this planet and they wandered and they gathered and they did all these things. The planet was never threatened. How did they survive for all this time without this belief in God? I'd like to ask this to someone who knows about Christianity and maybe you do. That just seems funny to me… (sic) Funny strange. Funny bad. Funny frown. Not good. That laws are made and wars occur because of this story that was written, again, in this small part of time.”

Eddie Vedder (1964) musician, songwriter, member of Pearl Jam

March 23, 1998, Janeane Garofalo interviewing Eddie Vedder for CMJ New Music Report at Brendan's, on the Lower East Side.

God, War, People, Law

“I have no regret that someone openly identified with terrorist organisations and activities meets his death the same way.”

Sammy Wilson (1953) British politician

The Irish Times (September 24, 1988)
After the loyalist killing of Gerard Slane

Death, Way

“Ultimately this virtual reality will go inside the brain and then really will be fully merging with all of the senses. Virtual reality ultimately will have all of the features of real reality plus a lot more that you can chose from millions of virtual environments. You can be someone else, you don’t have to pick the same boring body every time you can be different people and different situations and over time our biological bodies will become obsolete. We’ll have many bodies and we’ll look back at the idea of having one body and being dependent on just one biological body and having no back-up for a mind file as a very primitive time”

Ray Kurzweil (1948) Author, scientist, inventor, and futurist

Transcendent Man (2009)

People, Idea, Reality, Sense

“I'm interested when people will stand up for themselves. I'm always interested in that moment when someone decides it's not good enough, and even though it's painful, they're willing to make a change.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Interview, City's Best (4 February 2011) http://www.citysbest.com/chicago/news/2011/02/04/jennifer-beals-talks-chicago-code-windy-city-pride/.

Pain, People, Change

“When I made my first film, I think the thing was probably helped me the most was that it was such an unusual thing to do in the early 50s for someone who actually go and make a film. People thought it was impossible. It really is terribly easy. All anybody needs is a camera, a tape recorder, and some imagination.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

Interviewed by Charles Kohler, East Village Eye (1968)

People, Imagination, Thinking, Help

“I am always in love, but unfortunately for the party concerned, I fall out of love or rather fall in love with someone else before any damage can be done.”

Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941) Hungarian Indian artist

About her love life
Sikh Heritage,Amrita Shergil

Love

“If you trust in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter Four (16 July 1903)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)

Love, Confidence, Nature, Knowledge

“I just heard a story from someone the other day where somebody was beaten up by Christians for wearing one of our shirts. Of course, that's a very Christian thing to do.”

Davey Havok (1975) American singer

The Sydney Morning Herald, August 8, 2003 http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/07/1060145794806.html

“If you find someone you love in your life, then hang on to that love.”

Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–1997) First wife of Charles, Prince of Wales

"Princess Diana: 10 most inspiring quotes from the 'people's princess'", Hello Magazine, Daily News (1 July 2015)

love, For women, Good Night, Cute

“If you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Democratic National Convention Nomination Acceptance Speech (29 August 2008) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmEI9Doctqs 2008

People, Idea, Painting

“The country must be governed by someone who really loves his people and his land, who shares wealth and progress. I have all that, only that I am ignorant.”

Pancho Villa (1878–1923) Mexican revolutionary

Love, People, Country, Wealth

“Any time you see someone more successful than you are, they are doing something you aren't.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)

Time, Success

“[On the lyrics of his songs] They meant a lot to my generation. And it's nice to know you've written songs that mean something to someone rather than some trivial pop dirge. I'm not thriving off a career slagging off the Queen. I think I have something valid to say. My words are my bullets. I like to brag that somehow I got it right.”

John Lydon (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

Interview: Seven Magazine in the London Telegraph (6 January 2008)

Thinking

“I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried — tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out.”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Quoted in The Films of Paul Newman (1971) by Lawrence J. Quirk (Citadel Press), ISBN 0-806-50385-8), p. 36

Life, People, Guy, Communication

“Everyone should die with someone holding onto them.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Maia Roberts, to Bat Velasquez, pg. 227
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

“For someone like me, it is a very strange habit to write in a diary. Not only that I have never written before, but it strikes me that later neither I, nor anyone else, will care for the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

20 June 1942
(1942 - 1944)

“Someone who knows too much finds it hard not to lie.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 64e

Lie

“You're going to tell me that poverty's nothing to be ashamed of. It's not true, though. If you can't hide it, then it is something to be ashamed of. There's nothing you can do, you're ashamed just the same, the way you're ashamed when you leave a spot on somebody's table. No matter if it's deserved or not, honorable or not, poverty stinks. Yes, stinks, stinks like a ground-floor room off an airshaft, or clothes that need changing. You smell it yourself, as though you were made of sewage. It can't be wiped away. It doesn't help to put on a new hat, any more than rinsing your mouth helps when you're belching your guts out. It's around you and on you and everyone who brushes up against you or looks at you knows it. I know the way women look down on you when you're down at heels. I know it's embarrassing for other people, but the hell with that, it's a lot more embarrassing when it's you. You can't get out of it, you can't get past it, the best thing to do is get plastered, and here" (he reached for his glass and drained it in a deliberately uncouth gulp) "here's the great social problem, here's why the 'lower classes' indulge in alcohol so much more - that problem that countesses and matrons in women's groups rack their brains over at tea. For those few minutes, those few hours, you forget you're an affront to other and to yourself. It's no great distinction to be seen in the company of someone dressed lie this, I know, but it's no fun for me either.”

Stefan Zweig book The Post Office Girl

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

Women, People, Alcohol, Lie

“It is not by recognizing the want of courage in someone else that you acquire courage yourself..”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 44e

Courage

“The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy. It's the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Remarks at Human Rights Day event http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/121086a.htm (10 December 1986) 1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)

People, Democracy

“It's not often you get to see someone drool. Especially with such total abandon. Mouth wide open and everything.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Jace to Clary, pg. 185
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

“The people with low level of consciousness look for someone else to affirm their value, but people with higher levels of consciousness, what they seek is someone to point out their defects so they can become better.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy (2010)

People

“That's why tonight I ask every American who knows someone without health insurance to help them get covered by March 31st. Help them get covered. Moms, get on your kids to sign up. Kids, call your mom and walk her through the application. It'll give her some peace of mind, and plus, she'll appreciate hearing from you. After all, that -- that's the spirit that has always moved this nation forward. It's the spirit of citizenship, the recognition that through hard work and responsibility, we can pursue our individual dreams, but still come together as one American family to make sure the next generation can pursue its dreams as well.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Sixth State of the Union Address (January 2014)

Health, Family, Peace, Dreams

“I do not know anything about Charles Keating's work or his business or the matters you are dealing with. I only know he has been kind and generous to God's poor, and always ready to help whenever there was a need… Whenever someone asks me to speak to a judge, I always tell them to pray, to look into [their] heart, and to do what Jesus would do in that circumstance. And this is what I am asking of you, your Honor.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

Letter to Judge Lance Ito, requesting clemency for Charles Keating (January 18 1992), as quoted by Christopher Hitchens in The Missionary Position http://books.google.com/books?id=PTgJIjK67rEC&pg=PA11&dq=%22I+think+it+is+very+beautiful+for+the+poor+to+accept+their+lot%22, (Verso, 1995), page 67 1990s

God, Business, Help, Heart

“So when my own time comes to join the choir invisible or whatever, God forbid, I hope someone will say, "He's up in Heaven now." Who really knows? I could have dreamed all this.”

Kurt Vonnegut book God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)
Context: I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great, spectacularly prolific writer and scientist, Dr. Isaac Asimov in that essentially functionless capacity. At an A. H. A. memorial service for my predecessor I said, "Isaac is up in Heaven now." That was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. It rolled them in the aisles. Mirth! Several minutes had to pass before something resembling solemnity could be restored.
I made that joke, of course, before my first near-death experience — the accidental one.
So when my own time comes to join the choir invisible or whatever, God forbid, I hope someone will say, "He's up in Heaven now." Who really knows? I could have dreamed all this.
My epitaph in any case? "Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt." I will have gotten off so light, whatever the heck it is that was going on.

God, Dreams, Hope, Time

“Someone once wrote, “A bullet need happen only once, but for peace to work we need to be reminded of its existence again and again and again.””

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Statement on the Shootings in Baton Rouge (July 2016)
Context: Someone once wrote, “A bullet need happen only once, but for peace to work we need to be reminded of its existence again and again and again.” My fellow Americans, only we can prove, through words and through deeds, that we will not be divided. And we’re going to have to keep on doing it “again and again and again.” That’s how this country gets united. That’s how we bring people of good will together. Only we can prove that we have the grace and the character and the common humanity to end this kind of senseless violence, to reduce fear and mistrust within the American family, to set an example for our children. That’s who we are, and that’s who we always have the capacity to be. And that’s the best way for us to honor the sacrifice of the brave police officers who were taken from us this morning.

Peace

“I am an improvised bridge, and when Someone passes over me, I crumble away behind Him.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: I am not alone in my fear, nor alone in my hope, nor alone in my shouting. A tremendous host, an onrush of the Universe fears, hopes, and shouts with me.
I am an improvised bridge, and when Someone passes over me, I crumble away behind Him.

“Here is a conclusion I’ve come to after many years: among all the errors we may have committed, the greatest of them all was that we believed that someone really knew something about socialism, or that someone actually knew how to build socialism.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

University of Havana address (2005)
Context: Here is a conclusion I’ve come to after many years: among all the errors we may have committed, the greatest of them all was that we believed that someone really knew something about socialism, or that someone actually knew how to build socialism. It seemed to be a sure fact, as well-known as the electrical system conceived by those who thought they were experts in electrical systems. Whenever they said: “That’s the formula”, we thought they knew. Just as if someone is a physician. You are not going to debate anemia, or intestinal problems, or any other condition with a physician; nobody argues with the physician. You can think that he is a good doctor or a bad one, you can follow his advice or not, but you won’t argue with him. Which of us would argue with a doctor, or a mathematician, or a historian, or an expert in literature or in any other subject? But we must be idiots if we think, for example, that economy is an exact and eternal science and that it existed since the days of Adam and Eve, and I offer my apologies to the thousands of economists in our country.

Error

“If you have an opportunity to accomplish something that will make things better for someone coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Another excerpt from the Tris Speaker speech – featuring a much more familiar version of the "wasting your time" warning – as quoted in "Standing Cheer for Roberto" by Houston Chronicle sportswriter John Wilson, in The Sporting News (February 20, 1971), p. 44.

Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>
Context: We must all live together and work together no matter what race or nationality. If you have an opportunity to accomplish something that will make things better for someone coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth.

Time

“It goes against the American storytelling grain to have someone in a situation he can't get out of, but I think this is very usual in life.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Playboy interview (1973)
Context: It goes against the American storytelling grain to have someone in a situation he can't get out of, but I think this is very usual in life. There are people, particularly dumb people, who are in terrible trouble and never get out of it, because they're not intelligent enough. It strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that man can always solve his problems. This is so untrue that it makes me want to cry — or laugh.

Life, Thinking

“As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak — nothing passive — nothing naïve — in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)
Context: In today's wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sown, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed, children scarred.
I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace.
We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak — nothing passive — nothing naïve — in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.
But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

Life

“When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding "truth" within the realm of reason. If I make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare "look, a mammal' I have indeed brought a truth to light in this way, but it is a truth of limited value.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding "truth" within the realm of reason. If I make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare "look, a mammal' I have indeed brought a truth to light in this way, but it is a truth of limited value. That is to say, it is a thoroughly anthropomorphic truth which contains not a single point which would be "true in itself" or really and universally valid apart from man. At bottom, what the investigator of such truths is seeking is only the metamorphosis of the world into man.

Truth, Way, Light

“We must march against the enemy, and teach him that he must go and get what he wants by attacking someone who will not resist him, but that men whose glory it is to be always ready to give battle for the liberty of their own country, and never unjustly to enslave that of others, will not let him go without a struggle.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book IV, 4.92-[7]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book IV

Men, Country

“I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that's an evil one, because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels.”

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy

Will and Mary in Ch. 33 : Marzipan
His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000)
Context: "When you stopped believing in God, did you stop believing in good and evil?"
"No. But I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that's an evil one, because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels."

People, Evil, Help, Hurt

“The day you follow someone you cease to follow Truth.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Discipleship
One Minute Wisdom (1989)
Context: To a visitor who asked to become his disciple the Master said, "You may live with me, but don't become my follower."
"Whom, then, shall I follow?"
"No one. The day you follow someone you cease to follow Truth."

Truth

“The sin of pride may be a small or a great thing in someone's life, and hurt vanity a passing pinprick or a self-destroying or even murderous obsession.”

Iris Murdoch book The Philosopher's Pupil

The Philosopher's Pupil (1983) p. 76.
Context: The sin of pride may be a small or a great thing in someone's life, and hurt vanity a passing pinprick or a self-destroying or even murderous obsession. Possibly, more people kill themselves and others out of hurt vanity than out of envy, jealousy, malice or desire for revenge.

Life, Hurt

“One of the worst muddles of this age is its confusing of the ideas behind combative and cognitive activity. Cognition is not fighting, but once someone knows a lot, he will have much to fight for, so much that he will be called a relativist because of it.”

Karel Čapek (1890–1938) Czech writer

"On Relativism" (1925)
Context: Socialism is good when it comes to wages, but it tells me nothing when it comes to other questions in life that are more private and painful, for which I must seek answers elsewhere. Relativism is not indifference; on the contrary, passionate indifference is necessary in order for you not to hear the voices that oppose your absolute decrees … Relativism is neither a method of fighting, nor a method of creating, for both of these are uncompromising and at times even ruthless; rather, it is a method of cognition. If one must fight or create, it is necessary that this be preceded by the broadest possible knowledge... One of the worst muddles of this age is its confusing of the ideas behind combative and cognitive activity. Cognition is not fighting, but once someone knows a lot, he will have much to fight for, so much that he will be called a relativist because of it.

Age, Idea, Fight

“Well, I was sitting opposite of her one day, with my back to the window, listening to her flow of rhetoric. She had an impressive dream the night before, in which someone had given her a golden scarab-a costly piece of jewellery. While she was still telling me this dream, I heard something behind me gently tapping on the window. I turned round and saw that it was a fairly large flying insect that was knocking against the window from outside in the obvious effort to get into the dark room. This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window and immediately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. It was a scarabaeid beetle, or common rose-chafer, whose gold-green color most nearly resembles that of a golden scarab. I handed the beetle to my patient with the words "Here is your scarab."”

C.G. Jung book Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle

Source: Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (1960), p. 110
Context: My example concerns a young woman patient who, in spite of efforts made on both sides, proved to be psychologically inaccessible. The difficulty lay in the fact that she always knew better about everything. Her excellent education had provided her with a weapon ideally suited to this purpose, namely a highly polished Cartesian rationalism with an impeccably "geometrical" idea of reality. After several fruitless attempts to sweeten her rationalism with a somewhat more human understanding, I had to confine myself to the hope that something unexpected and irrational would turn up, something that burst the intellectual retort into which she had sealed herself. Well, I was sitting opposite of her one day, with my back to the window, listening to her flow of rhetoric. She had an impressive dream the night before, in which someone had given her a golden scarab-a costly piece of jewellery. While she was still telling me this dream, I heard something behind me gently tapping on the window. I turned round and saw that it was a fairly large flying insect that was knocking against the window from outside in the obvious effort to get into the dark room. This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window and immediately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. It was a scarabaeid beetle, or common rose-chafer, whose gold-green color most nearly resembles that of a golden scarab. I handed the beetle to my patient with the words "Here is your scarab." This broke the ice of her intellectual resistance. The treatment could now be continued with satisfactory results.

Dreams, Color, Effort, Flying

“It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he doesn't know the nature of the universe but still gives some credence to myths. So without the study of nature there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure.”

Epicurus (-341–-269 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

12 Variant translation: One cannot rid himself of his primal fears if he does not understand the nature of the universe, but instead suspects the truth of some mythical story. So without the study of nature, there can be no enjoyment of pure pleasure. http://www.epicurus.info/etexts/PD.html Sovereign Maxims

Pleasure, Fear, Nature, Study

“In a democracy... someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book VIII, 8.89
As quoted in A Historical Commentary on Thucydides: A Companion to Rex Warner’s Penguin Translation, David Cartwright/Rex Warner, University of Michigan Press (1997), p. 298 : ISBN 0472084194
In the Richard Crawley translation, this quote is rendered as follows : [U]nder a democracy a disappointed candidate accepts his defeat more easily, because he has not the humiliation of being beaten by his equals.
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VIII

Democracy

“The problem comes up because we ask the question in the wrong way. We supposed that solids were one thing and space quite another, or just nothing whatever. Then it appeared that space was no mere nothing, because solids couldn't do without it. But the mistake in the beginning was to think of solids and space as two different things, instead of as two aspects of the same thing. The point is that they are different but inseparable, like the front end and the rear end of a cat. Cut them apart, and the cat dies. Take away the crest of the wave, and there is no trough.
Here is someone who has never seen a cat. He is looking through a narrow slit in a fence, and, on the other side, a cat walks by. He sees first the head, then the less distinctly shaped furry trunk, and then the tail. Extraordinary! The cat turns round and walks back, and again he sees the head, and a little later the tail. This sequence begins to look like something regular and reliable. Yet again, the cat turns round, and he witnesses the same regular sequence: first the head, and later the tail. Thereupon he reasons that the event head is the invariable and necessary cause of the event tail, which is the head's effect. This absurd and confusing gobbledygook comes from his failure to see that head and tail go together: they are all one cat.
The cat wasn't born as a head which, sometime later, caused a tail; it was born all of a piece, a head-tailed cat. Our observer's trouble was that he was watching it through a narrow slit, and couldn't see the whole cat at once.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 26-27

Way, Cats, Failure, Question

“As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government.
The founders trusted us with this awesome authority. We should trust ourselves with it, too. Because when we don’t, when we turn away and get discouraged and abdicate that authority, we grant our silent consent to someone who’ll gladly claim it.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Commencement Address at Ohio State University (May 2013)
Context: That’s precisely what the founders left us: the power to adapt to changing times. They left us the keys to a system of self-government – the tool to do big and important things together that we could not possibly do alone. To stretch railroads and electricity and a highway system across a sprawling continent. To educate our people with a system of public schools and land grant colleges, including Ohio State. To care for the sick and the vulnerable, and provide a basic level of protection from falling into abject poverty in the wealthiest nation on Earth. To conquer fascism and disease; to visit the Moon and Mars; to gradually secure our God-given rights for all our citizens, regardless of who they are, what they look like, or who they love.
We, the people, chose to do these things together. Because we know this country cannot accomplish great things if we pursue nothing greater than our own individual ambition.
Still, you’ll hear voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works; or that tyranny always lurks just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule is just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.
We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems, nor do we want it to. But we don’t think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government.
The founders trusted us with this awesome authority. We should trust ourselves with it, too. Because when we don’t, when we turn away and get discouraged and abdicate that authority, we grant our silent consent to someone who’ll gladly claim it.

Understanding

“Here's the advice I give everyone about marriage — is she someone you find interesting?”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2018
Context: Here's the advice I give everyone about marriage — is she someone you find interesting? … You will spend more time with this person than anyone else for the rest of your life, and there is nothing more important than always wanting to hear what she has to say about things … Does she make you laugh? And I don’t know if you want kids, but if you do, do you think she will be a good mom? Life is long. These are the things that really matter over the long term.

Marriage

“Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter) — so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.”

Robert Browning Men and Women

"Andrea del Sarto", line 70
"Less is more" is often misattributed to architects Buckminster Fuller or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It is something of a motto for minimalist philosophy. It was used in 1774 by Christoph Martin Wieland.
Men and Women (1855)
Context: I do what many dream of, all their lives,
— Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
Who strive — you don't know how the others strive
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat —
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter) — so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
There burns a truer light of God in them,
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.

“The law about what is stealing is very clear. Stealing is taking something away from someone so they cannot use it. There’s no way that making a copy of something is stealing under that definition.”

Aaron Swartz (1986–2013) computer programmer and internet-political activist

UTI interview (2004)
Context: The law about what is stealing is very clear. Stealing is taking something away from someone so they cannot use it. There’s no way that making a copy of something is stealing under that definition.
If you make a copy of something, you’ll be prosecuted for copyright infringement or something similar — not larceny (the legal term for stealing). Stealing, like piracy and intellectual property, is another one of those terms cooked up to make us think of intellectual works the same way we think of physical items. But the two are very different.
You can’t just punish people because they took away a “potential sale”. Earthquakes take away potential sales, as do libraries and rental stores and negative reviews. Competitors also take away potential sales.

Law, Way

“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”

Ann Landers (1918–2002) American advice columnist

For Men

“No matter how hard you work to bring yourself up, there's someone out there working just as hard, to put you down. ”

Андре Ромелль Янг (Dr. Dre) (1965)

“The schooling system we have in the Western world is crazy – you’re taken away from your parents at your most impressionable age and fed a load of bullshit and lies manipulated to make you think that the way we live in the West is stable and moral, when really it’s neither. You come out of school with a one-track mind based on financial success; you’re encouraged to become enslaved to the banking system. In school, I always felt, ‘Something’s not right here’ and I’m starting to find out what it is. Being outside of the norm gives you freedom of thought and that’s something being suppressed in school and the media. If you have freedom of thought you get labeled as a crazy person or someone strange.”

Matthew Bellamy (1978) English singer-songwriter

Age, World, School, Way

“A great player is a player who can do everything on the field. He can do assists, encourage his colleagues, give them confidence to go forward. It is someone who, when a team does not do well, becomes one of the leaders.”

Pelé (1940–2022) Brazilian association football player

Self-confidence, Confidence

“Without someone telling you what you are doing is wrong, you can't say what you are doing is right.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

“If someone sticks by your side through your worst times, they’re the ones who deserve to be with you through your best times.”

Ralph Smart

Time

“When someone says i love you watch their actions more than their words.”

Ralph Smart

Love, Making love

“Just because someone desires you, does not mean that they value you. Read it over. Again. Let those words resonate in your mind.”

Ralph Smart

facebook

Reading

“When in love with someone, they must be your priority and paramount concern in life; and there should always be reciprocation; any other scenario creates a relationship molded with anxiety.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1980

Making love, Life, Love

“The most significant attribute and personality trait someone can possess is constant renewal; the continual process of renewing our wisdom in our personal life and in the workplace."

The above quote is an excerpt from the speech I gave the Broward County, City and County Managers Association in 1994. The theme of the presentation was how to identify higher-quality applicants and employees currently working in the organization. The concept is simple; some constantly learn what’s new and keep up to date on innovations and technology, while most only learn and are diffused by the renewal group.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2000

Personality, Learning, Life, Wisdom

“Those in love with someone who does not treat them special has endured countless hours of sorrow and despair.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1988

Despair, Love, Making love

“Mine is literary, and mine has a story to tell about a little boy with gaps in his education who became a writer. I’m hoping that the visitor will be curious, not unlike when someone goes to another person’s house for the first time—you look around and learn something about that person. We’re curious creatures, right?”

Gary Soto (1952) American poet and writer

On the Gary Soto Literary Museum in Fresno, California in “Jo Ellen Misakian Interviews Author Gary Soto on His New Books, Writing & the Gary Soto Literary Museum” https://cynthialeitichsmith.com/2011/10/jo-ellen-misakian-interviews-author/ (Cynthia Leitich Smith site)

Time, Housing, Personality, Hope

“Given a chance, most children will do the right thing. I was hoping to make them aware that sometimes all it takes is a nice word to really make someone else’s day. Consequently, a thoughtless remark can really hurt someone’s feelings.”

R. J. Palacio (1963) American author

On portraying characters that might unintentionally hurt Auggie, the protagonist in Wonder, in “Author R.J. Palacio | Interview” https://www.timeout.com/chicago/kids/activities/author-r-j-palacio-interview?pageNumber=2 in TimeOut Chicago (2012 Apr 12)

Hurt, Chance, Children, Hope

“You have the opportunity to be more than spectators, you can be actors in the revolution, writing about it, expressing yourselves about it. And the generations to come, what will they ask of you? You might produce magnificent artistic works from a technical point of view, but if you were to tell someone from the future generation, 100 years from bow, that a writer, an intellectual, lived in the era of the revolution and did not write about the revolution, and was not a part of the revolution, it would be difficult for a person in the future to understand this. In the years to come there will be so many people who will want to paint about the revolution, to write about the the revolution, to express themselves on the revolution, compiling data an information in order to know what it was like, what happened, how we used to live.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

Fidel Castro Reader, pp. 238
Words to Intellectuals (1961)

Painting, Understanding, Personality, Future