Quotes about something
page 90

“Young people, should be allowed to go up to one another and say “Hi” and that’s it – they go off and do something wonderfully stupid together…like have a gap year, there’s no other justification for that as far as I can see. What do young people have gap years for? They haven’t done anything yet! Why don’t they have a full year, where they do 9 times as much work as they’ve ever done in their life to prepare them for what the rest of adult hood feels like - which wandering around a desert, with a bag over your head, being bumped into by people who rob you as they bore you.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On gap years and life.
What It Is (2009)

Life, People, Stupidity, Feeling

“Passion isn't something that lives way up in the sky, in abstract dreams and hopes. It lives at ground level, in the specific details of what you're doing every day.”

Marcus Buckingham (1966) British writer

Author Marcus Buckingham, cited in: Michel Beaudry, " Sam Rees - making the Whistler leap http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/whistler/sam-rees-making-the-whistler-leap/Content?oid=2519430," at piquenewsmagazine.com, November 28, 2013.

Dreams, Hope, Way, Passion

“God has given a great deal to man, but man would like something from man.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Dios le ha dado mucho al hombre; pero el hombre quisiera algo del hombre.
Voces (1943)

God

“When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see.”

Baltasar Gracián book The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Que el aviso haga antes viso de recuerdo de lo que olvidava que de luz de lo que no alcançó.
Maxim 7 (p. 4)
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Light, Appearance

“Some years ago, I was lucky enough invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment they would realise that I didn’t qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things. On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, "I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent." And I said, "Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something."”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did.
http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/160603396711/hi-i-read-that-youve-dealt-with-with-impostor (2017)

People, Music, Thinking, Night

“I have been blessed to see my work flourish. Many people in history — Marcus Garvey, Ida B. Wells, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X — never lived to see their work flourish. I have seen people around the world embrace my philosophy and principles, involving themselves in a cultural institution that my organization and I created. That's something.”

Maulana Karenga (1941) Political activist

"The Man Who Invented Kwanzaa" in Ebony (January 1998)

People, World, History

“Mr. Chamberlain is right in so far as he says that things are not well in this country. We cannot feed the hungry with statistics of national prosperity, or stop the pangs of famine by reciting to a man the prodigious number of cheques that pass through the clearing-house. We must therefore propose something better than Mr. Chamberlain.”

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

Speech in the House of Commons (6 January 1904)
Backbench MP

Housing, Country

“Amusingly, it [astrology] falls foul of our modern taboo against lazy stereotyping. How would we react if a newspaper published a daily column that read something like this: "Germans: It is in your nature to be hard-working and methodical, which should serve you well at work today. In your personal relationships, especially this evening, you will need to curb your natural tendency to obey orders. Chinese: Inscrutability has many advantages, but it may be your undoing today. British: Your stiff upper lip may serve you well in business dealings, but try to relax and let yourself go in your social life.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

The Enemies of Reason, "Slaves to Superstition" [1.01], 13 August 2007, timecode 0:05:54ff
The Enemies of Reason (August 2007)

Life, Business, Nature, Reading

“As long as he could whisper, he would go on as he had begun, bluntly refusing to meet his creator with the admission that the creation had taught him nothing except that the square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle might for convenience be taken as equal to something else. Every man with self-respect enough to become effective, if only as a machine, has had to account to himself for himself somehow, and to invent a formula of his own for his universe, if the standard formulas failed.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Universe

“Children […] had sat in those very box buildings under buzzing fluorescent lights listening to their science teachers prattle about the wonders of space travel and gene splicing and how we were all going to live to be a hundred and twenty five years old in "smart" computer-controlled houses where all we had to do was speak to bump up the heat or turn on giant home theater screens in a life of perpetual leisure and comfort. It made me sick to think about. Not because there's something necessarily wrong with leisure or comfort, but because that's where our aspirations ended. And in the face of what had actually happened to us, it seemed obscenely stupid.”

James Howard Kunstler book World Made By Hand

Source: World Made By Hand (2008), Chapter 6, p. 33–34

Life, Children, Stupidity, Travel

“People say, "get us out of the UN, we don't need the UN", we invented the UN. This is us, we are the ones who founded the idea of nations working together, and I think that's something we need to do. And it's, it's messy, and it's really complicated, and there's going to be a lot of countries out there that expect us to clean up there mess, or just want to see us fall on (our) face. And they love that, which is what I think president Obama said brilliantly at the UN, when he basically said, "that ok". If I'm paraphrasing, I don't think he's ever said "ok" in his life, he's probably said "well". But basically he said, "look, for the last eight years you've been on our case about going it alone, you know, we're imperialists, we're hegemonic, we're going it alone, we're going it alone… Ok, we're not going it alone anymore, we're going to listen to you, but you better ante up and kick in. Because, you don't have the right to have an opinion, if you can't back it up. It's put up or shut up time". And I was so happy when he said that, and the way he handled the Latin (American) countries, when he was dealing with the crisis in Central America, the coups in Honduras. And he said, "the very same countries who accuse us of doing nothing, are also the same ones who accuse us of being imperialistic. You can't have it both ways."”

Max Brooks (1972) American author

Lecture of Opportunity | Max Brooks: World War Z https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nGG5E04cog

Love, Life, Happiness, People

“I know from experience that to one who thinks much and feels deeply, it often seems that he has only to put down his thoughts and feelings in order to produce something altogether out of the common; yet as soon as he sets to work he falls into a certain mannerism of style and common phraseology; his thoughts do not come spontaneously, and one might almost say that it is not the mind that directs the pen, but the pen leads the mind into common, empty artificiality.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma

"Rome, 9 January"
Without Dogma (1891)

Feeling, Thinking

“The Englishman is all right as long as he is content to be what God made him, an Englishman, but gets into trouble when he tries to be something else. There are chroniclers, or were chroniclers, who said it was the apeing of the French manners by our English ancestors that made us the prey of William the Norman, and led to our defeat at Hastings. Let that be a warning to us not to ape any foreign country. Let us be content to trust ourselves and to be ourselves.”

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

Speech at the annual dinner of The Royal Society of St. George (6 May 1924), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), p. 2.
1924

God, Country

“Think, Amelia, think. You read all those books. What would Odysseus do? Dress up like a beggar, and then shoot everyone. No help there. What would Achilles do? Go sulk in his tent. Nope. Aeneas? Sacrifice a cow or something. Boy, these old heroes are really not useful as role models. Who were my other heroes? Margaret Thatcher? Attack Argentina. No time to go wobbly.”

John C. Wright (1961) American novelist and technical writer

Source: Titans of Chaos (2007), Chapter 10, “Love’s Proper Hue” Section 7 (p. 157)

Books, Boy, Thinking, Time

“Sam Treiman… has quoted something he called Treiman's theorem… Impossible things usually don't happen…. With the discovery of radioactivity… it suddenly became apparent that the "impossible" was happening all the time. Uranium, thorium, radium… fit all the requirements of chemical elements. They could not be broken down by any of the standard methods… But occasionally… atoms of these elements spontaneously changed into other kinds of atoms…. So what is left of the doctrine of the elements? Is alchemy reinstated? Not at all. The point is that the doctrine fails only under rare or special conditions…. We can isolate the conditions in which they do, and retain a more restricted but still useful concept of the "impossible."”

Frank Wilczek (1951) physicist

Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)

Quotes, Change, Time

“It’s not a matter of imaging, despite what a lot of people would feel that it is. I’ve never presented myself in a way that I don’t feel comfortable with; I’ve never presented myself in a way to appeal to anybody. For the most part the way I’ve always looked to not appeal to most people. Really, my aesthetic was really more of a terrorism or violence than it was something to attract; more of a representation of my detachment than anything else — though it’s not always a very conscious thing.”

Davey Havok (1975) American singer

Skinnie magazine, March 2010, p. 29

People, Way, Feeling, Parting

“Human Rights Act are not, as some would have you believe, foreign impositions. These are British rights, drafted by British lawyers. Forged in the aftermath of the atrocities of the Second World War. Fought for by Winston Churchill. So let me say something really clear about the Human Rights Act. In fact I'll do it in words of one syllable: It is here to stay.”

Nick Clegg (1967) British politician

2011 speech to the Liberal Democrat conference in Birmingham http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=311 (2011) 2011

War, World

“Celebrity worship syndrome … is indicative of a kind of a complete dissolution of the self in favor of another. … Whether it's a mob mentality or a desire to be controlled by something higher than you, these cases are indicative of how charisma can replace the ego.”

Jack Gleeson (1992) Irish actor

Speech at Oxford Union (2014)

“When a person doesn’t understand something, he feels internal discord: however he doesn’t search for that discord in himself, as he should, but searches outside of himself. Thence a war develops with that which he doesn’t understand.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to A.S. Suvorin (May 15, 1889)
Letters

War, Feeling, Search, Understanding

“Philosophers get attention only when they appear to be doing something sinister—corrupting the youth, undermining the foundations of civilization, sneering at all we hold dear. The rest of the time everybody assumes that they are hard at work somewhere down in the sub-basement, keeping those foundations in good repair. Nobody much cares what brand of intellectual duct tape is being used.”

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) American philosopher

"Philosophical Convictions." The Nation, June 14, 2004.

Youth, Appearance, Time

“These days I see America identified more and more with material things, less and less with spiritual standards. These days I see America acting abroad as an arrogant, selfish, greedy nation interested only in guns and dollars, not in people and their hopes and aspirations. We need a faith that dedicates us to something bigger and more important than ourselves or our possessions. Only if we have that faith will we be able to guide the destiny of nations in this the most critical period of world history.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Essay for This I Believe (1952)
Other speeches and writings

People, World, Faith, Hope

“I have always said that, with any sculpture, you have to be able to say, 'although this is not a ready-made, it could be one'. That's what a sculpture has to look like. It must have a certain relation to reality. I mean, not airy-fairy, let alone fabricated, so aloof and polite… And I don't see this aspect in many artists' work. Often, my feeling is that they think something up that is supposed to be art. That's not what I want at all. Rather, a sculpture is really a photo – although it can be shifted, it must still always have an aspect that reality has too.”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

2001 - 2010, Isa Genzken in conversation with Wolfgang Tillmans' (2003)

Art, Feeling, Photo, Thinking

“The Web provided me with a much needed realization that information cannot be fully separated from its presentation, and showed me something I knew without verbalizing explicitly, that the presentation form we choose communicates real information.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: S-exp vs XML, HTML, LaTeX (was: Why lisp is growing) http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/9a30c508201627ee (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Communication

“There is arguably something wrong with a method of persuasion that cannot pass the test of publicity.”

Randal Marlin (1938) Canadian academic

Source: Propaganda & The Ethics Of Persuasion (2002), Chapter Four, Ethics And Propaganda, p. 166

“Science is a search for truth –whatever the truth may turn out to be, even if it’s evidently not what we wanted to believe it was. In science, it doesn’t matter what you believe; all that matters is why you believe it. This is why real science disallows faith, promising instead to remain objective, to follow wherever the evidence leads, and either correct or reject any and all errors along the way even if it challenges whatever we think we know now. But creationist organizations post written declarations of their unwavering obligation to uphold and defend their preconceived notions, declaring in advance their refusal to ever to let their minds be changed by any amount of evidence that is ever revealed. Anti-science evangelists display their statement of faith proudly on their own forums, as if admitting to a closed and dishonest mind wasn’t something to ashamed of or beg forgiveness for. They don’t want to do science. They want to un-do science! They try to segregate experimental science from historical science, ignoring the fact that both are based on empirical observations and both can be checked with testable hypotheses. Worse, they want to redefine science in general so that astrology, subjective convictions of faith, and excuses of magic can supplant the scientific method whenever necessary in defense of their beliefs. They’re only open to critical inquiry so long as that is not permitted to challenge the sacred scriptures nor vindicate any of the fields of study to which they’re already opposed. In short, everything science stands for, -or hopes to achieve- is threatened by the political agenda of these superstitious subversives.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"12th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TkY7HrJOhc Youtube (April 19, 2008) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Truth, Faith, Hope, Way

“We must not be beggars. Why should we beg? We have something to offer.”

Ziaur Rahman (1936–1981) President of Bangladesh

During an interview with The New York Times reporter, Kevin Rafferty in October 1976.
[10 October 1976, http://ziaarchive.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/economic-hope-for-bangladesh.pdf, Economic Hope For Bangladesh, 2010-11-19]

“Cricket has more in it than mere efficiency. There is something called the spirit of cricket, which cannot be defined.”

Lionel Tennyson

Sticky Wickets (1950), ASIN: B0000CHN1L

“Today no one who wishes to clean even a minimal regard for reason or evidence can espouse racist ideology as it was in its heyday, a system as comprehensive as Marxism and to some clearly equally as satisfying. However, thanks to Jensen and Eysenck and Shockley, the racist can cling to the periphery of his ideology; for example, he can provide a reasoned defence of his position on certain issues such as immigration and foreign policy. I do not wish to minimize the ground he has lost: the retreat from world history to little more than immigration quotas is a great defeat for the racist and a great source of satisfaction for all of his opponents. I am quite convinced that the refutation of racism in the light of reason is almost complete (the effort to eradicate it as a social force is a different matter and may never be fully accomplished). However, the last stand of the racist is not without importance, something I will attempt to demonstrate by giving a racist ideologue his say.”

James Robert Flynn (1934–2020) New Zealand scholar

not referring to any of the above mentioned persons
Source: Race, IQ, and Jensen (1980), p. 8

World, History, Effort, Light

“The future announces itself from afar. But most people are not listening. The noisy clatter of the present drowns out the tentative sound of things to come. The sound of the new does not fit old perceptual patterns and goes unnoticed by most people. And of the few who do perceive something coming, most lack the energy, initiative, courage or will to do anything about it. Leaders who have the wit to perceive and the courage to act will be credited with a gift of prophecy that they do not necessarily have.”

John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American politician

On Leadership (1981) p. 131

People, Courage, Future

“I'm sometimes asked what are the pluses and minuses of celebrity … and, for me, the biggest plus is being successful at something that I love to do. The minuses, unfortunately, include having to live with security and the knowledge that you may be stalked. … I do like people … I have lots of friends, but I can only be who I am.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Women's Weekly interview (2006)

Love, People, Knowledge, Success

“I have something more to do than to feel.”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Letter to Coleridge (September 27, 1796), after the death of Lamb's mother.

Feeling

“We should take counsel of both nature and art in the consideration of this question. When the architect intends a grand structure, he makes the foundation broad and strong. We should imitate this prudence in laying the foundations of the future Republic. There is a law of harmony in all departments of nature. The oak is in the acorn. The career and destiny of individual men are enfolded in the elements of which they are composed. The same is true of a nation. It will be something or it will be nothing. It will be great, or it will be small, according to its own essential qualities. As these are rich and varied, or pure and simple, slender and feeble, broad and strong, so will be the life and destiny of the nation itself. The stream cannot rise higher than its source. The ship cannot sail faster than the wind. The flight of the arrow depends upon the strength and elasticity of the bow, and as with these, so with a nation.”

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

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Life, Men, Law, Art

“I've never had to go very far to learn everything I have learned. I just had to care about something & pay attention.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

19 January 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/7933461617 Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

Learning

“For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless. And then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

http://paws.kettering.edu/~jhuggins/humor/stupid.html
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (US), Notes From a Big Country (UK) (1998)

People, Stupidity, Time, Perfection

“Just about everybody in politics has something to hide. The higher they rise in the system, the more skeletons they have stuffed in their closets. And as we have all come to appreciate, this goes double — or perhaps even squared — for politicos who got their start in Chicago. And because the system no longer cares about our rights (to the extent it ever did) we can no longer focus solely on issues related to them, but must cast about more widely to ensnare and defeat the enemies of liberty.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"It Has to Cost Them Something".

“I have a dog who looks a lot like a pig and I would look at him and think: “You know? I can not eat pig anymore.” And besides, is my dog really all that different from a pig on a factory farm? They both have their own lives and big personalities and most importantly the same capacity to feel pain. Once I made the connection, animal suffering became something I could not ignore. So if you have ever loved a cat or a dog, or even a human, I hope you will extend your compassion to include all animals. I am Mike White and I am a vegan.”

Mike White (filmmaker)

“ Mike White's 'Veggie Testimonial' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF8PJJFgg4E”, ad for PETA (30 July 2009).

Love, Pain, Dogs, Hope

“I believe that we face incredible obstacles in our attempts to see the world. Everything in our nature tries to deny the world around us; to refabricate it in our own image; to reinvent it for our own benefit. And so, it becomes something of a challenge, a task, to recover (or at least attempt to recover) the real world despite all the impediments to that end.”

Errol Morris (1948) American filmmaker and writer

Source: The Museum of Modern Art with Ron Rosenbaum http://www.errolmorris.com/content/interview/moma1999.html

World, Nature

“I was vegetarian for about 10 years, decided within that 10 years to just go full vegan … It's been 15 years of no flesh. What inspired me was as I learned more about the abuses to animals and the way meat was brought to the table and everything that these creatures were going through. It was just another motivation and reason for me to live the lifestyle that felt true to my soul and my spirit. … You don't realize what food tastes like until you stop eating meat. It's like something happens to your palate, it just gets cleansed and the simplest thing—a tomato—tastes like the most vibrant, amazing thing on the planet. My energy is fantastic.”

Kimberly Elise (1967) actress

“Kimberly Elise's Vegan Testimonial,” video interview with PETA (21 August 2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-ZUAmo7dLg.

Food, Way, Soul, Motivation

“After such a close brush with mortality I feel that I have an obligation to destiny and want to do something with my life that will benefit mankind. I am not a writer but think the best thing I can do is try to report on and understand what is happening in the world.”

Virgil John Tangborn (1920–1944)

October 1, 1938

Life, World, Feeling, Understanding

“There is something is common between literary, and above all theatrical, reputations and the fortunes which used of old to be made in the West Indies. In the early days it was almost sufficient to reach those islands to return with incalculable riches; but the very vastness of the fortunes thus obtained was prejudicial to those of the following generation, since the exhausted earth could yield no more.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Il en est un peu des réputations littéraires, et surtout des réputations de théâtre, comme des fortunes qu'on faisait autrefois dans les Iles. Il suffisait presque autrefois d'y passer, pour parvenir à une grande richesse, mais ces grandes fortunes mêmes ont nui à celles de la génération suivante: les terres épuisées n'ont plus rendu si abondamment.
Maximes et Pensées (Van Bever, Paris :1923), #442
Maxims and Considerations, #442

“If a concept lacks an essence, nothing will ever be found that completely fits that concept. If you are lacking in the concept of human being, it will immediately expose that you are something individual, something that cannot be expressed by the term human being, thus, in every instance, an individual human being.”

Max Stirner (1806–1856) German philosopher

Stirner's Critics (1845)

“In its essence, technology is something that man does not control.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Der Spiegel Interview with Martin Heidegger, 1966

“The expression "Making a mountain out of a molehill" simply means making a big deal out of something that is actually a small deal, and it is easy to see how this expression came about. Molehills are simply mounds of earth serving as condominiums for moles, and they have never caused anyone harm except for maybe a stubbed toe if you were walking around the wilderness without any shoes on. Mountains, however, are very large mounds of earth and are constantly causing problems. They are very tall, and when people try to climb them they often fall off, or get lost and die of starvation. Sometimes, two countries fight over who really owns a mountain, and thousands of people have to go to war and come home grumpy or wounded. And, of course, mountains serve as homes to mountain goats and mountain lions, who enjoy attacking helpless picnickers and eating sandwiches or children. So when someone is making a mountain out of a molehill, they are pretending that something is as horrible as a war or a ruined picnic when it is really only as horrible as a stubbed toe.”

Daniel Handler book The Austere Academy

The Austere Academy (2000)

War, Children, People, Shoe

“I have found little that is "good" about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud or perhaps even think.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Psycho-analysis and faith: the letters of Sigmund Freud & Oskar Pfister (1963 edition)
Attributed from posthumous publications

Thinking

“John Osborne spoke out in a vein of ebullient, free-wheeling rancour that betokened the arrival of something new in the theatre — a sophisticated, articulate lower-class. Most of the critics were offended by Jimmy Porter, but not on account of his anger; a working-class hero is expected to be angry. What nettled them was something quite different: his self-confidence. This was no envious inferior whose insecurity they could pity.”

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) English theatre critic and writer

"Decade in Retrospect: 1959" (1959), p. 13
Tynan Right and Left (1967)

Confidence, Self-confidence, Anger

“The frustration mainly comes from trying to understand what they really want. Also, you cannot understand how can such a large nation maintain its so-called stability by doing something very unlawful. I mean, how can they possibly manage to stabilize the whole social condition by not [acting with] justice and fairness.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, You’re There but You’re Not Existing, 2012

Justice, Understanding

“Another thing. This idea of "I'm offended". Well I've got news for you. I'm offended by a lot of things too. Where do I send my list? Life is offensive. You know what I mean? Just get in touch with your outer adult. And grow up. And move on. Reasonable people don't write letters because… A: They have lives and B, they understand it's just TV. C: If they see something they don't like, something they do like might be on later. I've seen many comics I've hated. I've seen many shows that have offended me. I've never written a letter. I just go about my life.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Interview with Howard Stern

Life, Hate, People, Idea

“What a wonderful thing is to be able to contribute to the restoration of someone's health. It's not only a feeling that I'm worth something, but that I have something to contribute.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big (1996), p. 165

Health, Feeling

“Everything meant something, still, some meanings were revealed sooner than others. And that some were seemingly never revealed in no way disproved the fact.”

Avram Davidson (1923–1993) novelist

Vergil in Averno (1987)

Way

“When my ability to reason shows me that the suffering of another being is very similar to my own suffering and matters just as much to that other being as my own suffering matters to me, then my reason is showing me something that is undeniably true…. The perspective on ourselves that we get when we take the point of view of the universe also yields as much objectivity as we need if we are to find a cause that is worthwhile in a way that is independent of our own desires. The most obvious such cause is the reduction of pain and suffering, wherever it is to be found.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

p. 238 http://books.google.com/books?id=BoDMBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT238 Writings on an Ethical Life (2000)

Pain, Way, Suffering, Universe

“It is particularly displeasing to hear professional critics using the term "layman" to describe people who are amateurs and patrons of those arts with which they are themselves professionally concerned. The fact that the critic gets money for knowing something, and giving public expression to his opinion, does not entitle him to consider the amateur, who may be as well informed and as sensitive as himself, an outsider.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

Money, People, Art

“But surely, speaking carefully, we do not sense 'red' and 'blue' any more than 'resemblance' (or 'qualities' any more than 'relations'): we sense something of which we might say, if we wished to talk about it, that 'this is red.”

J. L. Austin (1911–1960) English philosopher

Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), P. 49.

Sense

“Even then he had those piercing cat's eyes of his and when he had said something, finished up by saying: "If I'm wrong, put me right." And so I began to understand that you didn't speak for the sake of speaking, to say that you had done this or that, what you had eaten or drunk, but to work out an idea, to find out what makes the world go round.”

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

Source: The moon and the bonfire (1950), Chapter XVII, p. 98

World, Cats, Idea, Understanding

“You have to come to terms with yourself and your place in the scheme of life — something a good many people don't want to do. In the last century we have extended the normal life-span. Many seem to believe that this means we have extended the period when they should enjoy the things they enjoyed in youth. But I don't think they realize that we've also expanded the period of life when we can learn to think, feel, and experience the largeness and the splendor of life.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

"You Should Face Up to Your Death, Says Author".
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)

Life, People, Youth, Feeling

“At the most elemental level, reality evanesces into something called Schröedinger's Wave Function: a mathematical abstraction which is best represented as a pattern in an infinite-dimensional space, Hilbert Space. Each point of the Hilbert Space represents a possible state of affairs. The wave function for some one physical or mental system takes the form of, let us say, a coloring in of Hilbert Space. The brightly colored parts represent likely states for the system, the dim parts represent less probable states of affairs.”

Rudy Rucker (1946) American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author and philosopher

Source: The Sex Sphere (1983), p. 133-134

Color, Mathematics, Reality, Parting

“This dress is something I would want to be buried in! (On wanting to be buried in the painting she converted into a dress.)”

Keariene Muizz (1977) American artist

The Today Show (2012)

Painting

“Secondly, you are blessed to live in the greatest Nation – ever. Here you can strive and succeed as far as you dare to dream. It says something about our country that millions around the world are willing to leave their homes and families and risk everything to come here and realize the American dream. Their pursuit of that dream invigorates our national soul. It renews our country’s character. And it adds vitality to our culture.”

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

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

World, Family, Dreams, Home

“Government can't do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

As quoted in "Broken Government: Where the right went wrong," CNN (2006-11-03).

“But I've noticed something with other artists who do use the whole range of forms of colours and black - in Albers, for instance, who experiments with yellow, red, blue, the whole scale. Of course I love his colour paintings, but when I see a black-and-white such as 'The Homage to a Black and White Square' [ Josef Albers painted more versions], I like that best, you know. I think it has something to do with deciding just exactly what you really like best. There is always that wonderful element of doubt. I like the black painters really, even if they did work in color.... Velasquez.... also Tintoretto, and Rembrandt... Goya..”

Franz Kline (1910–1962) American painter

Quote of Kline in an interview (March 1960) with David Sylvester, edited for broadcasting by the BBC first published in 'Living Arts', Spring 1963; as cited in Interviews with American Artists, David Sylvester; Chatto & Windus, London 2001, pp. 61-62
1960's

Love, Color, Thinking, Painting

“I am not a fan of John McCain because he has done so little for our Veterans and he should know better than anybody what the Veterans need, especially in regards to the VA. He is yet another all talk, no action politician who spends too much time on television and not enough time doing his job and helping the Vets. He is also allowing our military to decrease substantially in size and strength, something which should never be allowed to happen. Furthermore, he was extremely disrespectful to the thousands upon thousands of people, many of whom happen to be his constituents, that came to listen to me speak about illegal immigration in Phoenix last week by calling them "crazies". These were not "crazies"—these were great American citizens. I have great respect for all those who serve in our military including those that weren't captured and are also heroes. I want to strengthen our military and take care of our Veterans. I want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN especially for those that serve to protect our freedom. I am fighting for our Veterans!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2015

People, Freedom, Time, Help

“The most powerful force in all history are the teachings of that man from Galilee, who taught us to live with one another, meaning something to each other.”

Henry Schriver (1914–2011) American politician

Cows, Kids, and Co-ops

History

“The first remark we have to make, and which — though already presented more than once — cannot be too often repeated when the occasion seems to call for it, — is that what we call principle, aim, destiny, or the nature and idea of Spirit, is something merely general and abstract. Principle — Plan of Existence — Law — is a hidden, undeveloped essence, which as such — however true in itself — is not completely real.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Lectures on the Philosophy of History

Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 1

Law, Idea, Nature

“It is an irony of the country’s political situation that while untouchability in the social field is considered to be evil, it is sometimes extolled as a virtue in the political field. If a party does not wish to practise untouchability towards its rivals in the political establishment, it is supposed to be doing something wrong. We, in the Jana Sangh, certainly do not agree with the communists’ strategy, tactics and their political culture. But that does not justify an attitude of untouchability towards them. If they are willing to work with us on the basis of issues, or as part of a government committed to an agreed programme, I see nothing wrong in it…. These (SVD) governments are a step towards ending political untouchability. The spirit of accommodation shown by all parties, despite their sharp differences, is a good omen for democracy.”

Deendayal Upadhyaya (1916–1968) RSS thinker and co-founder of the political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh

Deendayalji’s speech at the Calicut session of the Jana Sangh, 1967., quoted in L.K. Advani, My Country My Life (2008)

Democracy, Evil, Parting, Country

“Hamas is an openly genocidal, disgustingly bloodthirsty, racist Islamic death cult that brainwashes Palestinian children to be mindless Jew-killing jihadi suicide missiles. Is there something else we need to know about them? Oh yeah, they also run some hospitals.”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

December 23, 2002 http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=5083&only

Death, Children, Suicide

“I had to say something to strike him very weird so I yelled out "I like Fidel Castro and his beard."”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), Motorpsycho Nightmare

“"I guess heroes feel like they've accomplished something." "And you haven't? Several thousand slaves might disagree."”

Matthew Stover book Traitor

Jacen Sollo and Vergere, p. 121
Traitor (2002)

Feeling

“Playing gay in the theater is more fulfilling than on film because you can create a whole character and a backstory and you get to chip away at something over a long period of time. When you’re acting on film you sort of have one afternoon in front of a crew to just do it. And you don’t want to then be too overt and like that stereotype. But when I was doing A Paris Letter with Josh [Radnor], I was playing someone overtly flamboyant from the ’60s seducing him, and if I did that on film, I think it would look like I was acting too hard. It’s one of the fun things one wants to do as an actor, to play the flamboyant gay guy. But when you are gay that ends up being offensive to people. Say I was asked to play a flamboyant steward in an Airplane!–type farce. It would be a difficult decision to say yes to that role at this point because a lot of people would accuse me of making a mockery of gay people.”

Neil Patrick Harris (1973) American actor and host

Out Magazine; September 2008.

People, Guy, Thinking, Decision

“In reality, there is no such thing as “absolute truth”. Everything within the capacity of human understanding contains a degree of error, and everything men know to be true is only true to a degree. Everyone is inevitably wrong about something somewhere. We don’t know everything about everything. We don’t know everything about anything! And what we do know, we don’t know accurately on all points nor completely in every detail. Honest men admit this. Anyone claiming to know the absolute truth is not being honest, especially not when they claim to know anything about things which can only be believed on faith. Even if men were given genuine revelations by truly omniscient beings, they must still be filtered and interpreted by weaker minds influenced by our limitations, biases, and misimpressions, as well as linguistic and cultural barriers.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"3rd Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnj7PlqmJ5o, Youtube (December 10, 2007) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men, Truth, Faith, Error

“And I started wondering who he was going to be
And I thought heaven help us if hes anything like me.
He'll probably climb a tree to tall and ride hes bike to fast;
End up every summer wearin something in a cast.
He's gonna throw a ball and break some glass in a window down the street.
He's gonna get in trouble, oh he's gonna get in fights.
I'm gonna lose my temper and some sleep.
It's safe to say that I'm gonna get my payback if he's anything like me.”

Brad Paisley (1972) American country music singer

Anything Like Me, written by Brad Paisley, Chris DuBois, and Dave Turnbull.
Song lyrics, American Saturday Night (2009)

Sleep, Tree, Help, Fight

“If something seems possible, that's probably because someone is already doing it. When something seems that it can't possibly work, nobody tries it. Real innovation happens when someone tries anyway, overlooking an obvious flaw, and finds a way to make an idea work.”

Joel Spolsky (1965) American blogger

"How Hard Could It Be? Inspired Misfires, Personal Development Article" http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080201/how-hard-could-it-be-inspired-misfires_pagen_2.html

Way, Idea

“I would like to emphasize that security can be endangered not only from outside but also from within. If you do not maintain the rate of progress of the economic development of the nation. I would suggest that you would have the most serious crisis, something that would disintegrate India as we know it.”

Vikram Sarabhai (1919–1971) (1919-1971), Indian physicist

At a time when there was crisis of considerable economic and political turmoil and when he was offered the chair of the Atomic Energy Commission.
The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb: Science, Secrecy and the Post-colonial State

“There is some kind of juice in our brains that makes us only care about what's in front of us right this minute. Even if we know something different will happen later and we should think about that too. […] If I could teach you one thing, Preston, that's it. Think about what's coming at you later on.”

Barbara Kingsolver book Flight Behavior

Dellarobia Turnbow speaking to her son, Flight Behavior, page 589 (ISBN 978-0-571-29081-9).
Flight Behavior (2012)

Thinking

“To the masculine mind there appears to be something strangely exhilarating in the thought of a woman being abruptly torn from her home without sufficient time to put her wardrobe in order, and to all the men responsible for this voyage the most delightful feature apparently of the whole affair was the fact that I should be forced to get ready in five hours for a seventy-five days' voyage around the world.”

Elizabeth Bisland Whetmore (1861–1929) American writer and journalist

Seven Stages: A Flying Trip Around the World http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bisland/stages/stages.html

Men, World, Home, Appearance

“It may be supposed that I led a miserable life but I did not I was very far indeed from being miserable at this time when my wife came home at night, we had always something to talk about, we were pleased to see each other, our reliance on each other was great indeed, we were poor, but we were young, active cheerful and although my wife at times doubted that we would get on in the world, I had no such misgivings.”

Francis Place (1771–1854) English social reformer

Source: The Autobiography of Francis Place: 1771-1854, 1972, p. 7; Cited in: Jeremy Wickins. " An Overview of Francis Place's Life, 1771-1854 http://www.historyhome.co.uk/people/place2.htm," historyhome.co.uk, last edited 12 january 2016.

Life, World, Home, Time

“I rely on two precedents: first, to similar cases our Sages applied the verse, "It is time to do something in honour of the Lord: for they have made void thy law"… Secondly, they have said, "Let all thy acts be guided by pure intentions."… Lastly, when I have a difficult subject before me—when I find the road narrow, and can see no other way of teaching a well established truth except by pleasing one intelligent man and displeasing ten thousand fools—I prefer to address myself to the one man, and to take no notice whatever of the condemnation of the multitude; I prefer to extricate that intelligent man from his embarrassment and show him the cause of his perplexity, so that he may attain perfection and be at peace.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Introduction

Truth, Peace, Law, Fools

“Anarchism being immediately impracticable, let us have a government which governs as little as possible. Lord Melbourne's attitude of mind should be commended for imitation to all Prime Ministers. On being pressed by less wise members of his Cabinet to further certain legislation, he replied, "Must we really do something – why not let well alone?"”

William Darling (politician) (1885–1962) Scottish politician

Source: The Bankrupt Bookseller (1947), pp. 119–20

“The oppressors develop a series of methods precluding any presentation of the world as a problem and showing it rather as a fixed entity, as something given--something to which people, as mere spectators, must adapt.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

People, World, Problem

“[T]here was something about Obama that brought out the real alt-right crap. And because it was like one of these things where, "Hey, there are a bunch of cannibals that have joined our army, and they’re doing pretty well on the left flank." "Good, give them guns." You know? That kind of mentality. And so now, half the party is eaten by cannibals. And guess what? They’re eating us next.”

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

2010s, 2017, Interview with Bill Kristol (2017)

“A liberal education is that which aims to develop faculty without ulterior views of profession or other means of gaining a livelihood. It considers man an end in himself and not an instrument whereby something is to be wrought. Its ideal is human perfection.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 234

Education, Perfection

“From education by the Church to education by Germanic value is a step of several generations. We are the transition from one education to the other. We are the conquerors of one era and the founders of a new - also religious - epoch. We bear a heavy and therefore a great destiny. To destroy images is something every revolution has been able to do. But to establish its cause upon nothing and yet not to burn all bridges behind it: that is the nobility of character of the National Socialist era. The German people is not marked by original sin, but by original nobility. The place of Christian love has been taken by the National Socialist, Germanic idea of comradeship…which has already been symbolically expressed through the replacement of the rosary by the spade of labour.”

Alfred Rosenberg (1893–1946) German architect and politician

Quoted in Chapter 13, Part 3 of "The Face Of The Third Reich" by Joachim C. Fest.

Love, People, Education, Idea

“I don't enquire after your Affairs-- --so whatever happens, I wash my hands on't---- It hath always been my Maxim, that one Friend should assist another-- --But if you please----I'll take one of the Scarfs home with me. 'Tis always good to have something in Hand.”

John Gay (1685–1732) English poet and playwright

Trapes, Act III, sc. vi
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Home

“But my motivation was more a matter of wanting to create order – to keep track of things. All those boxes full of photographs and sketches weigh you down, because they have something unfinished, incomplete, about them. So it's better to present the usable material in an orderly fashion and throw the other stuff away. That's how the Atlas came to be, and I exhibited it a few times.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Quote of an interview with Stefan Koldehoff, 1999; as cited on collected quotes on the website of Gerhard Richter: 'on Atlas' https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/quotes/atlas-4 1990's

Motivation, Fashion, Time, Box

“There's a big difference between the words, ‘naked’ and ‘nekkid.’ ‘Naked’ means you don't have any clothes on. ‘Nekkid’ means you don't have any clothes on - and you're up to something.”

Lewis Grizzard (1946–1994) American journalist

Source: Lewis Grizzard Naked vs. Nekkid from the Best Of Lewis Grizzard album, September 15, 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=achROqQBP9g,

Clothes

“In scientific thought we adopt the simplest theory which will explain all the facts under consideration and enable us to predict new facts of the same kind. The catch in this criterion lies in the word "simplest." It is really an aesthetic canon such as we find implicit in our criticisms of poetry or painting. The layman finds such a law as {\mathrm{\partial }x \over \mathrm{\partial } t} = \Kappa { \, \mathrm{\partial}^2x \over \mathrm{\partial }y^2} much less simple than "it oozes," of which it is the mathematical statement. The physicist reverses this judgment, and his statement is certainly the more fruitful of the two, so far as prediction is concerned. It is, however, a statement about something very unfamiliar to the plainman, namely, the rate of change of a rate of change.”

J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) Geneticist and evolutionary biologist

Possible Worlds and Other Papers (1927), p. 227

Law, Mathematics, Change, Painting

“What I am trying to do is something different — an effect of reality, but what some fools call Impressionism, a term that is usually misapplied, especially by the critics who don't hesitate to apply it to Turner, the greatest creator of mysterious effects in the whole world of art.”

Claude Debussy (1862–1918) French composer

As quoted in The Lives of the Great Composers (1997) by Harold C. Schonberg, p. 464

World, Fools, Art, Reality

“Admittedly, the tendency to bracket substantive moral questions makes it difficult to argue for toleration in the language of the good. Defining privacy rights by defending the practices privacy protects seems either reckless or quaint; reckless because it rests so much on moral argument, quaint because it recalls the traditional view that ties the case for privacy to the merits of the conduct privacy protects. But as the abortion and sodomy cases illustrate, the attempt to bracket moral questions faces difficulties of its own. They suggest the truth in the "naive" view, that the justice or injustice of laws against abortion and homosexual sodomy may have something to do with the morality or immorality of these practices after all.”

Michael J. Sandel (1953) American political philosopher

Michael J. Sandel, "Moral Argument and Liberal Toleration: Abortion and Homosexuality" (1989)

Truth, Justice, Law, Question

“I keep wondering if, say, there is intelligent life on other planets, the scientists argue that something like two percent of the other planets have the conditions, the physical conditions, to support life in the way it happened here, did Christ visit each and every planet, go through the same routine, the Agony in the Garden, the Crucifixion, and so on…”

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

“Basil From Her Garden”.
Flying to America: 45 More Stories (2007)

Life, Way, Intelligence, Support

“Roger: Well no I think it goes a long way with people who are actually fans of the band. I understand that people who do buy the records are stoked when it’s something that has some value and some thought and actually looks cool. Hopefully slowly that will start to get people motivated to buy vinyl again. Not only does it sound better but you get more of an experience with the artwork and stuff and the lyric sheet in your hand rather than on your computer screen. There’s something more intimate about that. I think slowly but surely vinyl will continue to kind of hold steady even with people not buying CDs anymore.”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

People, Way, Motivation, Understanding

“It's about kids in a horrible situation and there's this girl who overcomes it and gives hope to everyone and they come together to do something about it.”

Liam Hemsworth (1990) Australian actor

Hemsworth on themes in The Hunger Games. — [Hemsworth: 'Hunger Games' Violence Is Not Gratuitous, Waycross Journal Herald, Georgia, United States, March 28, 2012, 4]

Hope, Girl

“I really believe that the marijuana laws are a terrible injustice. They make no sense scientifically, ethically, legally, or any way. They cost a fortune to enforce and we incarcerate hundreds of thousands of people who have done nothing else, but possess or distribute marijuana. Maybe it's because I'm a child of the 60's and marijuana has been such a positive part of my life. I have never seen it as being addictive, having spent weeks, and months, and days of my life (and years) without using marijuana in any form. For me, it's a kind of a sacrament, something that should be used wisely and in the context of a loving family existence. […] There's a place for alcohol too, but there's no reason why adults shouldn't be allowed to do something which not only doesn't add harm to themselves or others, but is a way to enhance the beauty of life, the beauty of eating, of listening to music, of being with friends and family, of being with the one you love.”

Ann Druyan (1949) American author and producer

Ann Druyan – from her video podcast At Home in the Cosmos with Annie Druyan. — OVGuide. "Ann Druyan – A Plea for a Change in the Marijuana Laws Video" http://www.ovguide.com/ann-druyan-9202a8c04000641f8000000000008b85 (Podcast). published by Ann Druyan. Retrieved 2013-10-02.

Love, Life, People, Alcohol

“Hold on. I realize — can, just, just — I realize something's happening in Ferguson, but we're talking about something important here, so can you at least split-screen the video? I realize — look, the protesters and the police are clashing again, alright? They’re clashing again. But we're talking about the dead— the death of an American”

Megyn Kelly (1970) American reporter

of an American who was beheaded, and Pete deserves his say.
After footage of Ferguson, Missouri police chasing protesters over the shooting of Michael Brown was aired while contributor Pete Hegseth spoke to her about ISIS beheading journalist James Foley.
2014-08-19
The Kelly File
Fox News, quoted in * 2014-08-21
Megyn Kelly Scolds Producers for Interrupting ISIS Discussion with Ferguson Video
Andrew Kirell
Media Matters for America
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/megyn-kelly-scolds-producers-for-interrupting-isis-discussion-with-ferguson-video/
2014-08-27

Death, Dead

“The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you're dead. The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you can have. Leverage is having something the other guy wants. Or better yet, needs. Or best of all, simply can't do without. Unfortunately, that isn't always the case, which is why leverage often requires imagination, and salesmanship.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Source: 1980s, Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987), p. 53

Guy, Imagination, Dead