Quotes about something
page 85

“A man that don't love a Horse, there is something the matter with him. If he has no sympathy for the man that does love Horses, then there is something worse the matter with him.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

"A Skinny Dakota Kid Who Made Good"
The Illiterate Digest (1924)

Love, Horse

“But really we wanted to do something that was more kind of different than what most punk rock bands are doing right now, where they are all dressing in black and acting pissed or sad or wearing make-up. Its just not what we are into.”

Tom DeLonge (1975) American rock musician

In interview for Absolutepunk.net http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=290928 about his band Angels and Airwaves. (January 2008).

Sadness

“.. the best way to know God is to love many things. Love a friend, a wife, something, whatever you like... But one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence… That leads to God, that leads to unwavering faith... To give you an example: someone loves Rembrandt, but seriously, - that man will know that there is a God, he will surely believe it... To try to understand the real significance, of what the great artists, the serious masters, tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God..”

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

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Cuesmes, Belgium July 1880; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 133) p. 39 1880s, 1880

Love, God, Faith, Way

“The magical proposition of the gospel, once free from the clasps of fairy tale, was very adult to me, very gritty like something from Hemingway or Steinbeck, like something with copious amounts of sex and blood. Christian spirituality was not a children's story. It wasn't cute or neat. It was mystical and odd and clean, and it was reaching into the dirty. There was wonder in it and enchantment.
Perhaps, I thought, Christian spirituality really was the difference between illusion and magic.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Children, Sex

“Bin Laden's real audience is the Middle East, his other Muslims. I think he thought that, by this act, he would win large numbers of converts to his cause … [to] bring Arab regimes down. He would perhaps even take power in this or that country, preferably Saudi Arabia. That is where he is looking to; that is who is the audience. That is who his symbols are directed towards. So this is unlike anything else in the history of Islam. Early Muslims, when they left the Arabian Peninsula and entered the [Fertile Crescent], were conquerors. They converted peoples, and they gave them time to convert. So they didn't force them sometimes, and they were perfectly happy ruling over them. They were setting up a state, and then people converted over time. Syria remained Christian for hundreds of years after the Muslim conquest. So something different is going on here. The obvious sense in which the United States is evil is in the cultural icons that are seen everywhere. They are seemingly trivial things, the influence of the America culture, which is everywhere: TV, how women dress, the lack of importance of religion. So these are the senses in which they are rejecting the United States. But you're right; they don't see Americans as people. … They block that out. They only see as people the Muslims they want to convert to their side, and that's terrifying.”

Kanan Makiya (1949) American orientalist

"Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/faith/interviews/makiya.html, PBS Frontline (2002)

Women, Happiness, People, Religion

“Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: 'Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?' And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: 'What kind of evidence is there for that?' And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.”

Richard Dawkins book A Devil's Chaplain

"Good and Bad Reasons for Believing" [open letter to his daughter]
A Devil's Chaplain (2003)

People, Hope, Thinking, Time

“Scholars, like princes, may learn something by being incognito. Yet we see those who cannot go into a bookseller's shop, or bear to be five minutes in a stage-coach, without letting you know who they are. They carry their reputation about with them as the snail does its shell, and sit under its canopy, like the lady in the lobster. I cannot understand this at all. What is the use of a man's always revolving round his own little circle? He must, one should think, be tired of it himself, as well as tire other people.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On People With One Idea" Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

People, Understanding, Thinking, Learning

“"I don't really know what happened. I just fell out of the nest." But the second Soren said those words he felt a weird queasiness. He almost knew. He just couldn't quite remember, but he almost knew how it had happened, and he felt a mixture of dread and shame creep through him. He felt something terrible deep in his gizzard.”

Kathryn Lasky (1944) American children's writer

Soren explaining to Gylfie how he got captured; Chapter Three: "Snatched!", p. 29
The Capture (2003)

“Let me end this chapter by suggesting that religion has done something for science. The latter came to full flower in its modern form in seventeenth-century Europe. Have you ever wondered why that's so? After all the ancient Greeks were pretty clever and the Chinese achieved a sophisticated culture well before we Europeans did, yet they did not hit on science as we now understand it. Quite a lot of people have thought that the missing ingredient was provided by the Christian religion. Of course, it's impossible to prove that so - we can't rerun history without Christianity and see what happens - but there's a respectable case worth considering. It runs like this.
The way Christians think about creation (and the same is true for Jews and Muslims) has four significant consequences. The first is that we expect the world to be orderly because its Creator is rational and consistent, yet God is also free to create a universe whichever way God chooses. Therefore, we can't figure it out just by thinking what the order of nature ought to be; we'll have to take a look and see. In other words, observation and experiment are indispensable. That's the bit the Greeks missed. They thought you could do it all just by cogitating. Third, because the world is God's creation, it's worthy of study. That, perhaps, was a point that the Chinese missed as they concentrated their attention on the world of humanity at the expense of the world of nature. Fourth, because the creation is not itself divine, we can prod it and investigate it without impiety. Put all these features together, and you have the intellectual setting in which science can get going.
It's certainly a historical fact that most of the pioneers of modern science were religious men. They may have had their difficulties with the Church (like Galileo) or been of an orthodox cast of mind (like Newton), but religion was important for them. They used to like to say that God had written two books for our instruction, the book of scripture and the book of nature. I think we need to try to decipher both books if we're to understand what's really happening.”

John Polkinghorne (1930) physicist and priest

page 29-30.
Quarks, Chaos & Christianity (1995)

Men, God, People, Books

“I do feel somewhat guilty that I'm not more grateful to Jesus, but I just wish he had asked me before he went ahead with it [being crucified], because now I feel like I'm being billed for something I didn't order. Because that's the deal, isn't it? If you're a Christian, you're born already in debt to Jesus, and it's a debt you can only repay, in full, by dying. That's some deal you've got yourself into there; that's like being asked to pay off a mortgage for a house you already own.”

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

"Hello angry Christians" (26 September 2007) http://youtube.com/watch?v=atTSwau9fwM 2007

Feeling, Housing

“"Listen, LISTEN… I agree… with everything… you're carving… on the kitchen table, I do. But do you think maybe this might have something to do with your per-ARGH!"(falls backward as if kicked). That first high kick to the thorax generally does the trick.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

Talking with women about their periods.
Like, Totally (2006)

Thinking

““Look at me closely, amigo,” said my dad. “Here is a hundred-dollar bill just to start with. Thirty dollars of this is for you to put in your own pocket right now. Capiche?” The bartender’s whole attitude changed. Suddenly he wasn’t tired anymore. “Yes, mi general, entiendo!” he said. “Good, and give another twenty to the chef in back and ten to the dishwasher. That leaves forty for my son and me to drink and eat a little something.” “But of course!” said the barkeeper. “The whole place is open for you! Which tequila would you like?” he added anxiously. “Herradura, and a couple of Modelo cervezas.” “I like Dos Equis,” I said. “The dark one.” “Okay,” said my dad, “one Modelo and one dark Dos Equis.” The bartender was flying, moving, truly enjoying the whole show. My dad winked at me. “Like I always say, to tip after the meal is stupid. Tip first and big, and the whole world changes.””

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Stupidity, World, Drink, Change

“Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”

James Bovard (1956) American journalist

Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (1994), p. 333 Compare earlier version by Marvin Simkin, "Individual Rights", Los Angeles Times, 12 January 1992: http://articles.latimes.com/1992-01-12/local/me-358_1_jail-tax-individual-rights-san-diego "Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote." Compare earlier version by Charles Flatt and Sheila Allen, "'Mainstream Values' Vs. Campus Pluralism : Campus Correspondence : The Privileged Classes Must Yield in the Name of Equality", Los Angeles Times, 25 November 1990: http://articles.latimes.com/1990-11-25/opinion/op-7188_1_american-values "Democracy has been described as four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Unmoderated majority rule means that the mistakes, the ignorance and the prejudices of the majority will become law. Minorities will be devoured, and the resulting society will be one of enforced and fearful homogeneity." Compare earlier version by James Bovard, "Re: One Person's Impact", Usenet group sci.environment, 23 April 1990: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/sci.environment/hos-RvIO1Mw/b3f0iWMcewUJ "A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Winston Churchill wasn't necessarily making a compliment when he said that democracy was the worst form of government, except for all the rest. Democracy has no more claim to legitimacy than totalitarian dictatorship."

Democracy

“In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

World

“History has a way of reducing individuals to flat, two-dimensional portraits. It is the enemy of subjectivity, which is why Stephen Dedalus called it "a nightmare from which I am trying to awake". If we think of Kierkegaard, of Nietzsche, of Hölderlin, we see them standing alone, outside of history. They are spotlighted by their intensity, and the background is all darkness. They intersect history, but are not a part of it. There is something anti-history about such men; they are not subject to time, accident and death, but their intensity is a protest against it. I have elsewhere called such men "Outsiders" because they attempt to stand outside history. which defines humanity on terms of limitation, not of possibility.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs (1964), p. 13-14

Death, Men, Way, History

“Take movement for example. Forces acting up, down, or from side to side. You make theories to explain it all, but you might well remember that it was you that invented them all. For Mach there was no reason to believe the rest of the cosmos was doing what your little bit was doing, so science should only describe not try to explain. Even description is relative. Am I moving or is the back ground? Or take the position of a star. It depends on the position you see it from, which depends on the date and time, which in turn depends on the position of the earth, in a solar orbit, in a solar system, moving around the edge of a Galaxy which may be moving away from other Galaxies. Say that you've decided that I'm moving and the background is standing still. Is the background moving relative to something else?”

James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer

The Day the Universe Changed (1985)

Star, Science, Time, Dependency

“And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Building of the Ship

Source: The Building of the Ship (1849), Lines 375-376.

“You can have true affection for only a few things in your life, and by getting rid of material things, I make sure I won't waste mine on something that can't feel my affection.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Pt. 2, Ch. 5
Papa Hemingway (1966)

Life, Feeling

“I am not successful and I probably never will be. I look around and I see successful people, and I see that they have something I don't—success. Perhaps they were born that way, or perhaps they figured something out that I can never seem to learn. I don't know. That's why I'm not successful.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

December 12
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

People, Way, Learning, Success

“There is something indecent in words.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

Source: The house on the hill (1949), Chapter 13, p. 126

“We are very fragile in front of the future. Accidents and sicknesses is the reality. We are born in extreme weakness and our life will end in extreme weakness. So this, people don't want to hold on to that. They want to prove something. They want security. They want to have big bank accounts and all that sort of stuff. But then also, hold lots of fears within us.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

On Being, The Wisdom of Tenderness (transcript) http://www.onbeing.org/program/wisdom-tenderness/transcript/1369 Interview with Krista Tippett, December 24, 2009 From interviews and talks

Life, People, Fear, Reality

“I was literally waiting till I turned 18 so I could do that [nude posing] with PETA. It's something I was passionate about at a young age. I was educating my mom and sister, and encouraging as many people as possible not to eat meat and the reasons behind it. That poster is something I'm really proud I did to raise awareness for a cause I believe in. It's one of my proudest moments.”

Christian Serratos (1990) American actress

"Christian Serratos Interview" https://uk.askmen.com/hermanos/success/christian-serratos-interview.html, interview with AskMen (26 March 2014).

People, Age, Education, Moms

“I came to share with many NSA colleagues a kind of unease, a sense that something was awry. What seemed out of place was the strong and open pro-Israel and anti-Arab orientation in an ostensibly apolitical policy-generation staff within the Pentagon.”

Karen Kwiatkowski (1960) retired military officer and author

" In Rumsfeld's Shop http://www.amconmag.com/12_1_03/feature.html", The American Conservative, 1 December 2003.

Sense, Strong

“In order to remain silent Da-sein must have something to say.”

Martin Heidegger book Being and Time

Stambaugh translation
Being and Time (1927)

“I thought it was sad, you know, that they had that pop concert to commemorate Diana. I mean, she didn't have much to do with pop music, did she? They should've done something that celebrated what was really great about her life: By staging a gangbang in a minefield.”

Frankie Boyle (1972) Scottish comedian

Mock the Week

Life, Sadness, Music

“The turbulent lives of their entrepreneurial ancestors led to grief and angst and adventures, and as Sirhan is fond of observing, an adventure is something horrible that happens to someone else.”

Charles Stross book Accelerando

Source: Accelerando (2005), Chapter 9 (“Survivor”), p. 387

“I’m a vegan. But, no one believes it because when you’re out in the field, most of your meal options involve meat with a side of something fried. I’ve learned how to be creative and improvise and can eat anywhere — even a steak house or a gas station.”

Nicole Lapin (1984) American journalist

Interview with 944 Magazine, "Woman of Power." http://www.nicolelapin.net/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=246&fullsize=1(November 2007)

Learning, Housing

“The annual payment [of German reparations] will very likely spread over some thirty years at least. It would therefore be fair and logical for the military occupation of the left bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads to last for the same length of time…There is, moreover, something quite unusual in the idea of renouncing a security before the amount secured has been completely paid…After the war of 1870, the Germans occupied various French provinces until they received the last centime of the indemnity imposed on France…It is argued that even when the occupation ceased, it could be resumed in the event of non-payment. This option to renew occupation may look tempting to-day on paper. But its bristling with drawbacks and risk. Let us imagine ourselves sixteen or seventeen years ahead. Germany has paid regularly for fifteen years. We have evacuated the whole left bank of the Rhine. We have returned to our side of the political frontiers which afford no military security. Imagine Germany again prey to Imperialism or imagine that she simply breaks faith. She suspends payment and we are obliged to reoccupy. We give the necessary orders, but who will vouch for our being able to carry them out without difficulty?”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Memorandum to Clemenceau (28 April 1919), quoted in David Lloyd George, The Truth about the Peace Treaties. Volume I (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938), p. 428.

War, Faith, Imagination, Idea

“God didn't produce a ready-made world. The Creator has done something cleverer than this, making a world able to make itself.”

John Polkinghorne (1930) physicist and priest

page 64.
Quarks, Chaos & Christianity (1995)

God, World

“Are we like the God of the Old Testament, that we in Washington can decide which cities, towns, and hamlets in Vietnam will be destroyed? Do we have to accept that? I don't think we do. I think we can do something about it.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

About the Vietnam War, in his last speech at the Senate on the subject

God, Thinking

“Capitalist power … is like one of those horrific modern bullets which do not simply pierce the flesh of the victim but explode inside her into a thousand different fragments. … The concept of fetishism is concerned with the explosion of power inside us, not as something that is distinct from the separation of doing and done (as in the concepts of 'ideology' and 'hegemony'), but as something that is integral to that separation. That separation does not just divide capitalists from workers, but explodes inside us, shaping every aspect of what we do and what we think, transforming every breath of our lives into a moment of class struggle.”

John Holloway book Change the World Without Taking Power

Change the World Without Taking Power (2002)

Thinking

“I recognised that I was (and I confessed) in that attitude of the mind wherein men admit mortality; something had already passed from me—I mean that fresh and vigorous morning of the eyes wherein the beauty of this land had been reflected as in a tiny mirror of burnished silver. Youth was gone out apart; it was loved and regretted, and therefore no longer possessed.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

Source: The Four Men: A Farrago (1911), p. 159

Love, Men, Youth, Beauty

“I support the Kinder-Guardians program. We in America would be wise to implement it, too. It's something that we should think about, America, about putting guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, good guys, whether they be teachers or whether they actually be talented children or highly-trained preschoolers.”

Trent Lott (1941) United States Senator from Mississippi

On arming 4 year old children, as quoted in "Who is America" Episode 1 on Showtime
2000s

Children, Law, Guy, Support

“Harry Dresden: Paranoia is a survival trait when you run in my circles. It gives you something to do in your spare time, coming up with solutions to ridiculous problems that aren't ever going to happen. Except when one of them does, at which point you feel way too vindicated.”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

Source: The Dresden Files, Changes (2010), Chapter 33

Way, Feeling, Problem, Time

“But I set fire to the rain,
Watched it pour as I touched your face,
Well it burnt while I cried,
Cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name!
I set fire to the rain
And I threw us into the flames
Well it felt like something died
Cause I knew that that was the last time, the last time!”

Adele (singer) (1988) British singer-songwriter

Set Fire to the Rain, written by Adele and Fraser T. Smith
Song lyrics, 21 (2011)

Time

“I tend to keep books of art more than anything else now. I'm interested in visual things. And astronomy books. Things you can look at over and over and over again and see something new. … My notions of God and the universe have always been too small. And limited by language. So now I'm looking at picture books. My children say I'm just beginning to enter my dotage: can't read, just looks at picture books.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Robert Fulghum : Philosopher King

God, Children, Books, Art

“We need to believe something, and you’re not allowed to believe in religion… Well, you can, but people will laugh at you and throw things. ‘Cause it was just sort of decided in the 20th century that religion is basically a formalized panic about death. Look at the Catholic church, the campest organization on the planet with the purple robes, gold bits on the side, jewellery so big if they let it fall it would kill people… What else can it be, but this sort of ritual of panic about death? “DEATH IS COMING! Quick, put on the gold hat!””

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

What It Is (2009)

Death, People, Religion

“Double standards in domestic roles are deeply rooted in cultural attitudes and workplace practices. Working mothers are held to higher standards than working fathers and are often criticized for being insufficiently committed, either as parents or professionals. Those who seem willing to sacrifice family needs to workplace demands appear lacking as mothers. Those who take extended leave or reduced schedules appear lacking as leaders. These mixed messages leave many women with the uncomfortable sense that whatever they are doing, they should be doing something else.”

Barbara Kellerman (1939) American academic

Source: Women and leadership, 2007, p. 12

Women, Family, Parent, Sense

“Snow had fallen and from the museum [in Pittsburgh, The ] you had a beautiful view of a valley with a railway, through some sheds, etc. But I could not finish it, and today, Sunday, I went back there again, but then the snow was already so far away that I could not make anything of it any more. It is a pity. Otherwise I could have sold something. [The painting was sold to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1934] (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) Er was namelijk sneeuw gevallen en uit het museum [in Pittsburgh, Breitner nam deel aan een jury en maakte vanuit een raam aan de achterzijde van het Carnegie Institute enkele schetsen en begon aan een schilderij] had men een prachtig gezicht op een dal met een spoorweg, door wat loodsen, enz. Maar ik kon 't niet afkrijgen, en vandaag, zondag, was ik er weer heengegaan, maar toen was de sneeuw al zoo ver dat ik [er] niets meer van kon maken. Het is wel jammer. Anders had ik nog wat kunnen verkoopen misschien. [Het schilderij is in 1934 verkocht aan het Stedelijk museum Amsterdam.]
In Breitner' letter to his wife, 1909, from Pittsburgh; as cited in George Hendrik Breitner in Amsterdam, J. F. Heijbroek, Erik Schmitz; uitgeverij THOTH, Bussum, 2014, p. 22
Breitner took part in an art-jury in Pittsburgh in 1909. He started to make some sketches from a window at the back-side of the Carnegie Institute and later the painting]
1900 - 1923

Beauty, Painting

“When you laugh at something, you don’t fear it anymore.”

Kage Baker book Sky Coyote

Source: Sky Coyote (1999), Chapter 31 (p. 266)

Fear

“Transcendental meditation is something that can be defined as a means to do what one wants to do in a better way, in a right way, for maximum results. It's a program that the mind begins to experience its own finer impressions, finer thoughts, and then finally transcends the finest thought. And that is the level of what they call self-referral pure consciousness, which is the ultimate reality of life, pure intelligence from where the creation emerges, from where the administration of life is maintained, from where physical expression of the universe has its basis.
Quoted from: w:Larry King Weekend, Interview With Maharishi Mahesh Yogi”

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917–2008) Inventor of Transcendental Meditation, musician

2002-05-12
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0205/12/lklw.00.html

Life, Way, Intelligence, Reality

“So my change in diet was really a gradual process. I had cut meat out of my diet and then had a hard time trying to reintroduce it, same thing with dairy. The transition was nearly complete. The last thing I had to cut out was the eggs. I had met some healthy athletes that adhere to a vegan diet and I just believe it's a super healthy way to go. I don't even like to call it a diet because it's not something I plan on stopping. It's truly a lifestyle choice for me.”

David Zabriskie (1979) road bicycle racer

"5 Minutes With Dave Zabriskie" https://web.archive.org/web/20101124034627/http://www.pelotonmagazine.com/Feedzone/content/6/210/5-Minutes-With-Dave-Zabriskie, interview with Peloton Magazine (November 2010).

Way, Change, Time

“There is only one healing force, and that is nature; in pills and ointments there is none. At most they can give the healing force of nature a hint about where there is something for it to do.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Es gibt nur eine Heilkraft, und das ist die Natur; in Salben und Pillen steckt keine. Höchstens können sie der Heilkraft der Natur einen Wink geben, wo etwas für sie zu tun ist.
Neue Paralipomena
Essays

Nature

“The desire to protect animals derives inevitably from better acquaintance with them, from the realization that they are sensitive and intelligent creatures, affectionate and seeking affection, powerless in a cruel and incomprehensible world, exposed to all the whims of the master species. According to the animal haters, those who are fond of animals are sick people. To me it seems just the other way around, that the love for animals is something more, not something less. As a rule, those who protect animals have for them the same feeling as for all the other defenseless or abused creatures: the battered or abandoned children, the sick, the inmates of penal or mental institutions, who are so often maltreated without a way of redress. And those who are fond of animals don't love them for their "animality" but for their "humanity" — their "human" qualities. By which I mean the qualities humans display when at their best, not at their worst. Man's love for the animal is, at any rate, always inferior in intensity and completeness to the love the animal has for the human being that has won its love. The human being is the elder brother, who has countless different preoccupations, activities and interests. But to the animal that loves a human being, this being is everything. That applies not only to the generous, impetuous dog, but also to the more reserved species, with which it is more difficult to establish a relationship without personal effort and plenty of patience.”

Hans Ruesch (1913–2007) Swiss racing driver

Source: Slaughter of the Innocent (1978), pp. 45-46

Love, Children, People, World

“As long as we try to project from the relative and conditioned to the absolute and unconditioned, we shall keep the pendulum swinging between dogmatism and skepticism. The only way to stop this increasingly tiresome pendulum swing is to change our conception of what philosophy is good for. But that is not something which will be accomplished by a few neat arguments. It will be accomplished, if it ever is, by a long, slow process of cultural change – that is to say, of change in common sense, changes in the intuitions available for being pumped up by philosophical arguments.”

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) American philosopher

Introduction to Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3 (1998).

Way, Sense, Change

“Personally, I detest any attempt to bring the law into maxims. Maxims are invariably wrong, that is, they are so general and large that they always include something which is not intended to be included.”

William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher (1815–1899) British lawyer, judge and politician

Yarmouth v. France (1887), L. J. 57 Q. B. 9.

Law, Personality

“I am bound to say that it took me a long time to understand what he meant. He began by saying that everybody thought of Space as an 'empty homogeneous medium.' 'Never mind at present what the ultimate constituents of that medium are. We take it as a finished product, and we think of it as mere extension, something without any quality at all. That is the view of civilised man. You will find all the philosophers taking it for granted. Yes, but every living thing does not take that view.”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

Space (1912)

Understanding, Thinking, Time

“He had that faint sick look in his eyes, as if he wanted to give her something, charity for instance.”

Margaret Atwood book Bodily Harm

Bodily Harm (1981)

“Of errors and defects we certainly have not less than our full share, enough to keep the reformer awake, the statesman busy, and the country in a pretty lively state of agitation for some time to come. Perfection is an object to be aimed at by all, but it is not an attribute of any form of government. Mutability is the law for all. Something different, something better, or something worse may come, but so far as respects our present system and form of government, and the altitude we occupy, we need not shrink from comparison with any nation of our times. We are to day the best fed, the best clothed, the best sheltered and the best instructed people in the world.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

People, World, Law, Error

“The movie, as everyone knows, is about a man who finds himself living the same day over and over and over again. He is the only person in his world who knows this is happening, and after going through periods of dismay and bitterness, revolt and despair, suicidal self-destruction and cynical recklessness, he begins to do something that is alien to his nature. He begins to learn.”

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

Review https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-groundhog-day-1993 of Groundhog Day Reviews, Four star reviews

World, Nature, Suicide, Learning

““Did you experience hallucinations or illusions?”
“What’s the difference?”
“An illusion is a misreading of actual sensory data, while a hallucination is seeing something that isn’t there.””

Michael Swanwick book Stations of the Tide

Source: Stations of the Tide (1991), Chapter 7, “Who Is the Black Beast?” (p. 109)

“[Henry, to Rod] "Hell's not a place, Rod, it's something people do to each other."”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: The Burning Plain (1997), p.304 (Chapter 23)

People, Hell

“He was still having trouble readjusting. Wars were something you studied, not something that actually happened.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Between Planets

Source: Between Planets (1951), Chapter 1, “New Mexico” (p. 9)

War, Study

“We have always thought about design as being so much more than just the way something looks. It's the whole thing: the way something works on so many different levels. Ultimately, of course, design defines so much of our experience.”

Jonathan Ive (1967) English designer and VP of Design at Apple

Ive explaining his view on Apple's use of design in the product video shown at WWDC 2013 for iOS 7.

Way

“It's terribly demeaning to write something that tells its story in its own way and be told it fails because it might scare somebody. My God, must we speak with all the candor of a wax Elvis?”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Life in the Industry: A Musician's Diary

God, Way

“While there are scores of other lessons to glean from Noah’s life, let’s just look at one more here. It is the simple lesson “Don’t Listen to Critics,” if you know you are doing what God wants. Satan seems to always send opposition to anyone who seeks to do something for God. I’m sure Noah had his critics, but he didn’t stop building! BTW-- Can you name ANY of Noah's neighbors? Hmmm?”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 62

Life, God

“One day I could play and three days later I couldn't move. Our relationship was shaky because if one day you can play and the next day you can't, a person has to wonder if there's not something wrong in your head. But we straightened it out.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

From his 1971 World Series MVP acceptance speech, discussing his sometimes strained relationship with manager Danny Murtaugh, as quoted in "Pittsburgh's Clemente Honored"
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Personality

“We like our model, as we are evolving it. In every category Apple competes, it's the low-volume player, except in tablets. In the PC market, obviously the advantage of diversity has mattered since 90-something percent of PCs that get sold are Windows PCs. We'll see what winds up mattering in tablets.”

Steve Ballmer (1956) American businessman who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft

Ballmer's New Mission for Microsoft, 29 October 2012, 2014-02-28, The Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204789304578087112202063912, 2010s

“No woman could ever hurt me, because I don't permit myself to wish for something from people. So they can't disappoint me.”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

GIOIA Magazine Interview

People, Disappointment, Hurt

“The story of the Baudelaires does not take place in a fictional land where lollipops grow on trees and singing mice do all of the chores. The story of the Baudelaires takes place in a very real world, where some people are laughed at just because they have something wrong with them, and where children can find themselves all alone in the world, struggling to understand the sinister mystery that surrounds them….”

Daniel Handler book The Carnivorous Carnival

Lemony Snicket
The Carnivorous Carnival (2002)

Children, People, World, Understanding

“There's a lot of positive stuff to say about him… Why can't I think of any now? (laughs) Oh, here's something positive: Big Jim's best trait of character was that he has always been himself… which was his worst trait of character at the same time.”

Mike Patton (1968) American singer

"Dangerous Jokers" - (Nieuwe Revu, 17-24 May 1995)

Thinking, Time

“Your pa had seven years at sea, mostly in foreign parts.
You’ve heard him talk. He’s got a way about him, a way with words. He can make the temple bells tinkle for you, and you can just hear them big old elephants shuff-shuffling along, the priests callin’ folks to prayer and the like.
Your pa learned a sight of things most folks never even hear of. I’ve seen scholars back off an’ look at your pa, amazed.
You take these Injuns, now. You look at the way they live and you’ll say they don’t amount to much, but what are they thinkin’? What do they know? What memories do they have? They want different things, boy, and they consider different things important. Many a thing we’d give anything to know, they just take for granted.
Some of these Injuns, maybe all of them, they’re in tune with something. I don’t know what. But some of them have lost touch with it, and others are losin’ touch. Goin’ the white folks’ way might seem the likely thing to do, but maybe they lose as much as they gain.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Lonesome Gods (1983), Ch. 11

Way, Boy, Learning, Memory

“They told me that everybody must think of his future and what is more that everybody did. Then I found that they were right: I looked round me among those who believed as they and I did, and couldn't find a single one who was willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of his belief. For a little while perhaps they were prepared to sacrifice something, but when their personal dreams of the future came into conflict with their faith, they chose the dream. Those who had the luck to be officials came off best. They had no need to renounce their faith, it cooled off a bit perhaps, but they had no need to renounce it; not was there any need for them to renounce for dream of their personal happiness, for officials with cold faith can get as far as they like. So I soon stopped sacrificing everything for my faith, because anyone sacrifices everything all by himself is just stupid.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 202

Happiness, Stupidity, Faith, Dreams

“Death […] people nowadays seem to regard as something odd, whereas it is well known to be the commonest thing in the world.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

Source: The Path to Rome (1902), p. 258

Death, People, World

“There are, in fact, as I began to say above, not a few principles which are the special property of mathematics, such principles as are discovered by the common light of nature, require no demonstration, and which concern quantities primarily; then they are applied to other things, so far as the latter have something in common with quantities. Now there are more of these principles in mathematics than in the other theoretical sciences because of that very characteristic of the human understanding which seems to be such from the law of creation, that nothing can be known completely except quantities or by quantities. And so it happens that the conclusions of mathematics are most certain and indubitable.”

Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer

Vol. VIII, p. 148
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia, ed. Christian Frisch (1858)

Law, Mathematics, Understanding, Nature

“There is always something about our feeling for beautiful things which can neither be described nor communicated, which is unshared and unshareable.”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Theism and humanism

Beauty, Feeling, Communication

“Fascism is preoccupied by the clothing (namely the forms of state organization), National-Socialism by the body (namely the racial eugenics), whereas Legionarism is preoccupied by something much deeper: by the soul (namely by its strengthening through the cultivation of Christian virtues and its preparation with final salvation in mind, salvation dealt with by the Christian Church in the most perfect fashion).”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

The Nest Leader's Manual (1933)

Soul, Fashion, Perfection, Clothes

“Lois: Hey, Ginger! Are you masturbating in there or what? I wanna show you something!
Ginger: [in the tub] If I'm masturbating, will you leave me alone?
Lois: No! Check it out. How do I look?
Ginger: Like a white girl in a black bra.”

Alison Bechdel book Dykes to Watch Out For

#117, "Anticipation" (1991), collected in DTWOF: The Sequel (1992).
Dykes to Watch Out For

Girl

“A book unwritten is a delightful universe of infinite possibilities. Set down one word, however, and immediately it becomes earthbound. Set down one sentence and its halfway to being just like every other bloody book that's ever been written. But the best must never be allowed to drive out the good. In the absence of genius there is always craftsmanship. One can at least try to write something that will arrest the readers' attention, that will encourage them, after reading the first paragraph, to take a look at the second, and then the third.”

Robert Harris book The Ghost

Source: The Ghost (2007), Ch. 9.

Books, Universe, Reading

“Paint never seems to behave the same. Even the same paint doesn't, you know. In other words, if you use the same white or black or red, through the use of it, it never seems to be the same. It doesn't dry the same. It doesn't stay there and look at you the same way. Other things seem to affect it. There seems to be something that you can do so much with paint and after that you start murdering it..”

Franz Kline (1910–1962) American painter

n.p.
1960's, Living Art, 1963

Way, Painting

“If I am something of a social leveller, it is not because I want to give silly people a good time, but because I want to make opportunity universal, and not leave out one single being who is worth while.”

H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English writer

"What I Believe", The Listener, 1929. Quoted in Clifton Fadiman, I Believe, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1940.

People, Universe, Time

“The individual, so far as he suffers from his wrongness and criticizes it, is to that extent consciously beyond it, and in at least possible touch with something higher, if anything higher exist. Along with the wrong part there is thus a better part of him, even though it may be but a most helpless germ. With which part he should identify his real being is by no means obvious at this stage; but when stage 2 (the stage of solution or salvation) arrives, the man identifies his real being with the germinal higher part of himself; and does so in the following way. He becomes conscious that this higher part is coterminous and continuous with a more of the same quality, which is operative in the universe outside of him, and which he can keep in working touch with, and in a fashion get on board of and save himself when all his lower being has gone to pieces in the wreck.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture XX, "Conclusions"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

Way, Fashion, Suffering, Universe

“It is chiefly the psychologists of the school of Freud who have pointed out that many of man's thoughts and actions are compensatory substitutes for desires which he has been obliged to suppress. A thing may be desired not for its intrinsic worth or usefulness, but because he has unconsciously come to see in it a symbol of something else, the desire for which he is ashamed to admit to himself…This general principle, that men are very largely actuated by motives which they conceal from themselves, is as true of mass as of individual psychology…Human desires are the steam which makes the soial machine work. Only by understanding them can the propagandist control that cast, loose-jointed mechanism which is modern society.”

Edward Bernays book Propaganda

Page 75 as quoted in Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism edited by Mark P. Leone, Jocelyn E. Knauf, p.40
Propaganda (1928)

Men, School, Motivation, Understanding

“Sometimes girls write me. One girl in Yugoslavia sent me a whole slew of love letters. I don't know how she got my address. She was in a crowd watching me play. She says when I left there the stars fell out of the sky over Yugoslavia, or something like that.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

1960s, Portrait of a Genius As a Young Chess Master (1961)

Love, Girl, Star

“The drunk kids, the catholics
They’re all about the same
They’re waiting for something
Hoping to be saved”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Drunk Kid Catholic
Noise Floor (Rarities: 1998-2005) (2006)

Hope, Waiting

“This London, of course, with its hollow, drum-like name, is neither England nor abroad but something on its own, a walled fantasy of remembered tales.”

Laurie Lee (1914–1997) British writer

Eight-Year-Old World, p. 26.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)

“No one. That was the difficulty of my position. Any day something might happen to me. Himmler told me at the end of April 1945, after I had held a conference with the Zionist leader in Sweden, that he felt sorry for what he had done in his life, regretted his sneakiness toward other people, and excused himself for that. He said, to quote Himmler from my memory: 'If I had only listened to you, Schellenberg, in 1943, there still would have been time to do something for the German people.' I always had the impression that Himmler was under the influence of Hitler. Himmler was suggestible - could easily have been under the influence of Hitler. Himmler conspired with me too much for it to be true that Hitler was under Himmler's influence. Himmler and I plotted against Hitler too much for that. Toward the end of 1943 Himmler actually talked with me about killing Hitler. That was the danger in my position. Should someone change his mind, it would be the end of me. It became even more obvious after the Attentat of July 20, 1944, when Kaltenbrunner worked more and more closely with Hitler. Kaltenbrunner conspired against Himmler.”

Walter Schellenberg (1910–1952) German general

To Leon Goldensohn, after being asked if Himmler trusted anyone (13 March 1946). Quoted in "The Nuremberg Interviews" - by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

Life, People, Quotes, Memory

“All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Source: 1910s, Prejudices, First Series (1919), Ch. 13

Success, Help

“To my horror I began to cry…a great cloud of black guilt, knowledge of my atrocious selfishness, settled on me. One day she had said “when you love me (and she had not meant ‘make love to me’) it’s as if God forgave me for being the mess I am”; and I took it as chicanery, another emotional blackmail, to make me feel essential and give me a sense of responsibility towards her…My monstrous crime was Adam’s, the oldest and most vicious of all – male selfishness…Something far worse than lèse majesté. Lèse-humanité.”

John Fowles book Daniel Martin

Daniel Martin (1977)

Love, God, Making love, Feeling

“But as we become stronger, more capable of words, happier in our discovery that God does indeed love us, then might it not be important that we learn to withhold the excessive tribute of our resentment from something which doesn't really exist?”

James Alison (1959) Christian theologian, priest

Source: Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (2001), "Jesus' fraternal relocation of God", p. 84.

Love, God, Learning

“The task of instilling pathos into a creature that was, after all, an innocent victim of circumstances was something I had set myself from the outset, although I was restrained by the script… The Beast is a poor lost soul brought back to life by man and then destroyed by man. If it sounds familiar, it is. King Kong was a huge influence, as he would be in all the other creatures I would be father to.”

Ray Harryhausen (1920–2013) American animator

Source: An Animated Life (2003), p. 57

Life, Soul

“I believe more and more that this business is about people. People, people. The idea is to make friends at the retail level, the warehouse level, let people see you exist, can form sentences and have an interest in something other than yourself.”

David Lee Roth (1954) Rock vocalist; lead singer with Van Halen

Jim White (February 17, 1994) "POP / Hi, I'm Dave - lovely to see you: Last week, David Lee Roth went to Wembley to promote his new album - not at the stadium but at the distribution factory, saying hello to the packers and the pressers, 'making friends at the retail level'. Jim White jumped into the limo to discover where people fit in with 'this rock'n'roll thing'" The Independent, p. 27.

People, Idea, Business

“The current of Time's river
Will carry off all human deeds
And sink into oblivion
All peoples, kingdoms and their kings.

And if there's something that remains
Through sounds of horn and lyre,
It too will disappear into the maw of time
And not avoid the common pyre… [lines broken]”

Gavrila Derzhavin (1743–1816) Russian poet

Рѣка временъ въ своемъ стремленьи
Уноситъ всѣ дѣла людей
И топитъ въ пропасти забвенья
Народы, царства и царей.

А если что и остается
Чрезъ звуки лиры и трубы,
То вѣчности жерломъ пожрется
И общей не уйдетъ судьбы!
Lines found at Derzhavin's table after his death.
For another translation, see Time's river in its rushing current

People, Time

“Because I believe we are made the way God made man and woman and man and woman come together to have a union to produce children which keeps civilization going and provide the best environment for children to be raised. I think that is something society should value and should give privileged status over a group of people who want to have a relationship together.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

on same-sex marriage
Santorum Draws Boos From College Crowd for Opposing Gay Marriage
Julianna
Goldman
2012-01-12
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/01/10/bloomberg_articlesLXCV300D9L35.DTL#ixzz1jeLR1ECw
2012-01-16
http://web.archive.org/web/20120112222601/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/01/10/bloomberg_articlesLXCV300D9L35.DTL#ixzz1jeLR1ECw
2012-01-12

God, Children, People, Way