Quotes about something
page 92

Stanley A. McChrystal photo
K. R. Narayanan photo
Alfred Stieglitz photo

“I know exactly what I have photographed [in his series 'Equivalents', 1925 - 1934]. I know I have done something that has never been done... I also know that there is more of the really abstract in some 'representation' than in most of the dead representations of the so-called abstract so fashionable now.”

Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) American photographer

In a letter about his 'Equivalents' to w:Hart Crane; as quoted in Photography as High Art, Hilton Kramer, (1982-12-19)., in 'New York Times'. p. 1. Retrieved 2008-12-26; as quoted on Wikipedia.

Tad Williams photo

“The fear was all he had left, but even that was something—he was afraid, so he must be alive! There was darkness, but there was Simon, too! There were not one and the same. Not yet. Not quite…”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 13, “Between Worlds” (p. 199).

Larry David photo
Gloria Estefan photo
Jim Webb photo
Walt Disney photo

“Disneyland is like a piece of clay: If there is something I don't like, I'm not stuck with it. I can reshape and revamp.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

The Quotable Walt Disney (2001)

William Gibson photo
David Chalmers photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“She is not concerned about what I think about it or what Mrs. King thinks about it. She wants it. She’s a child and that’s very natural and normal for a child. She is inevitably self-centered because she’s a child. But when one matures, when one rises above the early years of childhood, he begins to love people for their own sake. He turns himself to higher loyalties. He gives himself to something outside of himself. He gives himself to causes that he lives for and sometimes will even die for. He comes to the point that now he can rise above his individualistic concerns”

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

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: I look at my little daughter every day and she wants certain things and when she wants them, she wants them. And she almost cries out, “I want what I want when I want it.” She is not concerned about what I think about it or what Mrs. King thinks about it. She wants it. She’s a child and that’s very natural and normal for a child. She is inevitably self-centered because she’s a child. But when one matures, when one rises above the early years of childhood, he begins to love people for their own sake. He turns himself to higher loyalties. He gives himself to something outside of himself. He gives himself to causes that he lives for and sometimes will even die for. He comes to the point that now he can rise above his individualistic concerns, and he understands then what Jesus meant when he says, “He who finds his life shall lose it; he who loses his life for my sake, shall find it.”’ In other words, he who finds his ego shall lose his ego, but he who loseth his ego for my sake, shall find it. And so you see people who are apparently selfish; it isn’t merely an ethical issue but it is a psychological issue. They are the victims of arrested development, and they are still children. They haven’t grown up. And like a modern novelist says about one of his characters, “Edith is a little country, bounded on the east and the west, on the north and the south, by Edith.” And so many people are little countries, bounded all around by themselves and they never quite get out of themselves. And these are the persons who are victimized with arrested development.

Aron Ra photo
Hans Arp photo
Richard Smalley photo
Robert E. Howard photo
Chuck Schumer photo

“President Trump turned away from not one but two bipartisan compromises. Each would have averted this shutdown…. It is something the majority could have avoided entirely, a concern the president could have obivated, if he were only willing to take yes for an answer.”

Chuck Schumer (1950) U.S. Senator from the State of New York

Source: Floor speech to the Senate https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/22/politics/senate-shutdown-vote-congress/index.html?CNNPolitics=Tw (22 January 2018) on the bipartisan agreement in the senate to end the government shutdown, quoted at ABC 10 News https://www.10news.com/news/u-s-world/live-blog-federal-government-shutdown-january-2018?page=2

Chris Jericho photo

“Yeah, congratulations. Way to go, Punk, way to go. Congratulations on your big win. You need to enjoy them while you can. You see, you can smirk if you want to, but I see straight through you. When I look at you, I see a fraud. And I'm not talking about the fact that you call yourself the best in the world, I'm talking about you as a person. Because I did a little research this week, Punk, and I found something, a little deep, dirty, dark secret about you. You've been straight edge ever since you came to the WWE, but you've never explained the reasons why. I wanna tell all of these wannabes why you're straight edge. I wanna tell them that you're straight edge because your father is an alcoholic.
Yeah, that's right. Your father was an alcoholic who let you down every step of the way when you were growing up, and it terrifies you. You don't want to end up like him. But it's inevitable that you will, because alcohol is in your blood, it's in your genes, it's part of who you are, and that tortures you. I know you've built this facade, this wall that you're a sarcastic antihero with not a care in the world, but I think I've found something that you care about. I've found something that gives you nightmares, something that terrifies you.
And isn't it ironic that the very alcohol that you crave is the same thing that ruined your childhood? Oh, the nightmares you must have about your father; I almost feel bad for you, Punk. Is that the reason why you have all those tattoos? Was the pain of wanting to drink so bad that you needed the pain of a tattoo needle to take it out of your mind? Was that your only solace?
It doesn't matter if it is, Punk, because you are going to drink eventually, and I'm the one who is going to make you drink. At WrestleMania XXVIII, I'm going to take away your title, I'm gonna take away your claims of being the best in the world, I'm gonna take away your bravado, and I'm gonna leave you a broken man. You're gonna hit bottom, Punk, and when you do, you're going to embrace your destiny, and you're gonna take a drink. And it's gonna taste so good that you're gonna wanna take another one, and another one, and another one. After April 1st, I'm gonna be recognized for who I am—the undisputed best in the world and the new WWE Champion. And you're gonna be recognized for who you are, who your father was—a pathetic damn drunk!”

Chris Jericho (1970) American professional wrestler, musician, television host, podcast host and author

March 12, 2012 - WWE Raw

Ai Weiwei photo
Ingmar Bergman photo
Ben Carson photo
Indro Montanelli photo

“Also we Italians have something to Elvis Presley: to offer one of the rare occasions when we prefer to be Italian rather than American.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

il Giornale nuovo, 20 August 1977, p. 1.
1950s - 1990s

Wendell Phillips photo

“Be not dismayed by a defeat. What is defeat! Nothing but education, nothing but the first step to something better.”

Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer

No record of this specific remark exists prior to its use by a George W. Phillips, in an address to the fifth annual convention of the National Association of Life Underwriters (June 1894), reported in The Chronicle: A Weekly Journal, Devoted to the Interests of Insurance Vol. LIII (1894), p. 336 https://books.google.com/books?id=xoAoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA335&dq=%22What+is+defeat?+Nothing+but+education.+Nothing+but+the+first+step+to+something+better.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFiMan5KveAhWl6YMKHYV6C44Q6AEIdTAO#v=onepage&q=%22What%20is%20defeat%3F%20Nothing%20but%20education.%20Nothing%20but%20the%20first%20step%20to%20something%20better.%22&f=false
Misattributed

Henry George photo
Nigel Cumberland photo

“Stop trying to be a Jack-of-all-trades and be a master of one thing. Whether it’s writing an email, kicking a ball around with your kids, driving through the city or simply being alone and meditating. For those ten minutes you’re doing something – or for whatever period of time it takes – do it with 100-per-cent focus.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Oliver Lodge photo
Norman Mailer photo

“I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

As quoted in The Writer's Quotation Book : A Literary Companion (1980) by James Charlton, p. 43

David Foster Wallace photo
K-os photo
W. Somerset Maugham photo
Rush Limbaugh photo

“So, Ms. Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here's the deal: If we are going to pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I'll tell you what it is — we want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

The Rush Limbaugh Show
2011-03-01
Radio, quoted in * Limbaugh's Misogynistic Attack On Georgetown Law Student Continues With Increased Vitriol
Media Matters for America
2009-03-09
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203010012

William Saroyan photo

“He knew the truth and was looking for something better.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Jim Dandy : Fat Man in a Famine (1947)

Hayley Williams photo
Gore Vidal photo

“There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Preface to Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship http://books.google.com/books?id=LXFbAAAAMAAJ&q="There+is+something+about+a+bureaucrat+that+does+not+like+a+poem" (1969)
Preface to Sex, Death, and Money http://books.google.com/books?id=54JBAAAAIAAJ&q="There+is+something+about+a+bureaucrat+that+does+not+like+a+poem" (1969)
1960s

Benoît Mandelbrot photo
Walker Percy photo
B.K.S. Iyengar photo
Esther Williams photo
Randy Pausch photo
Paul Ryan photo

“Now it's a war on women; tomorrow it's going to be a war on left-handed Irishmen or something like that.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

Naples, Florida fundraiser, , quoted in * 2012-10-19
Bashir: Ryan compares ‘war on women’ to ‘war on left-handed Irishmen’
MSNBC
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/martin-bashir/49482269#49482269
2012-11-07

Henri Matisse photo
Zach Galifianakis photo

“Here's something you'll never see in Braille: "If you see something, say something."”

Zach Galifianakis (1969) American actor and comedian

Saturday Night Live (May 4, 2013)

Neil Gaiman photo
Frank McCourt photo
Poul Anderson photo

“He was no respecter of windy theories about inborn racial traits, but there was something to be said for traditions so ancient as to be unconscious and ineradicable.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Delenda Est (p. 192)
Time Patrol

Phil Brooks photo
Anish Kapoor photo

“There’s something imminent in the work, but the circle is only completed by the viewer.”

Anish Kapoor (1954) British contemporary artist of Indian birth

Anish Kapoor Opens the Door:Modern Artist Creates Monuments that Transcend Space & Time

Rosie O'Donnell photo

“But I'm also gonna give you a fair warning that there's a good chance I'll do something like that again, probably in the next week -- not on purpose. Only 'cause it's how my brain works.”

Rosie O'Donnell (1962) American comedienne, television personality and actress

[O'Donnell apologizes for Chinese parody / But comedian warns she is likely to spoof languages agai, Vanessa, Hua, http://articles.sfgate.com/2006-12-15/news/17323548_1_asian-americans-chinese-americans-danny-devito, San Francisco Chronicle, 15 December 2006, http://www.webcitation.org/5u6kkFPI4, 2010-11-09, 2010-11-09]
O'Donnell's apology after using the pejorative term ching chong.

Michael Moore photo

“He is probably choking on a pretzel or something. I hope nobody tells him that I have won this award while he is eating a pretzel. … He has the funniest lines in the film. I am eternally grateful to him.”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

Statement about US President George W. Bush, at press conference after winning the top prize at the Cannes film festival for Fahrenheit 9/11; quoted in Reuters reports (22 May 2004) http://guardianangels-mn.org/Minnesota/Too-funny-to-keep-in-mn.politics.html and in [Moore scoops Palme d'Or with attack on US president, Patrick, Barkham, The Guardian, 24 May 2004, http://film.guardian.co.uk/cannes2004/story/0,,1223156,00.html]
2004

Nora Ephron photo
Myron Tribus photo
Mo Yan photo
Anish Kapoor photo
Charles Kingsley photo

“Let us be content to do little, if God sets us at little tasks. It is but pride and self-will which says, "Give me something huge to fight, — and I should enjoy that — but why make me sweep the dust?"”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 388.

Joseph Joubert photo
Mary Eberstadt photo

“The sheer decibel level of unreason surrounding the issue of abortion in academic writing about animal rights tells us something interesting. It suggests that, contrary to what the utilitarians and feminists working this terrain wish, the dots between sympathy for animals and sympathy for unborn humans are in fact quite easy to connect—so easy, you might say, that a child could do it. … Since ethical vegetarianism as a practice appears commonly rooted in an a priori aversion to violence against living creatures, so does it often appear to begin in the young. … A sudden insight, igniting empathy on a scale that did not exist before and perhaps even a life-transforming realization—this reaction should indeed be thought through with care. It is not only the most commonly cited feature of the decision to become a vegetarian. It is also the most commonly cited denominator of what brings people to their convictions about the desperate need to protect unborn, innocent human life. … Despite those who act and write in their name, actual vegetarians and vegans are far more likely to be motivated by positive feelings for animals than by negative feelings for human beings. As a matter of theory, the line connecting the dots between “we should respect animal life” and “we should respect human life” is far straighter than the line connecting vegetarianism to antilife feminism or antihumanist utilitarianism.”

Mary Eberstadt American writer

"Pro-Animal, Pro-Life" https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/06/pro-animal-pro-life, in First Things (June 2009).

Sania Mirza photo
Mata Amritanandamayi photo
William Wordsworth photo
Adam Goldstein photo

“There’s no reason why I should have lived or why I lived and they didn’t. And it’s something I struggle with every day.”

Adam Goldstein (1973–2009) American DJ

DJ AM’s friend rushed to his SoHo apt., but he was already dead http://blog.taragana.com/e/2009/08/29/goldstein-suffered-daily-struggle-to-cope-29107/ Taragana. Retrieved August 30, 2009.

Christine O'Donnell photo

“One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar and I didn't know it. I mean there was a little blood there, and something like that.”

Christine O'Donnell (1969) American Tea Party politician and former Republican Party candidate

TV appearances

Katherine Heigl photo
Russell L. Ackoff photo
Emil M. Cioran photo
Burkard Schliessmann photo
Edith Cavell photo

“Someday, somehow, I am going to do something useful, something for people. They are, most of them, so helpless, so hurt and so unhappy.”

Edith Cavell (1865–1915) British nurse

As quoted in The Economist (15 October 2010), p. 107

Pappus of Alexandria photo
Clifford D. Simak photo

““You sound like a rugged individualist,” said Webster.
“You say that like you think it’s funny,” yapped the mayor.
“I do think it’s funny,” said Webster. “Funny, and tragic, that anyone should think that way today.”
“The world would be a lot better off with some rugged individualism,” snapped the mayor. “Look at the men who have gone places—”
“Meaning yourself?” asked Weber.
“You might take me, for example,” Carter agreed. “I worked hard. I took advantage of opportunity. I had some foresight. I did—”
“You mean you licked the correct boots and stepped in the proper faces,” said Webster. “You’re the shining example of the kind of people the world doesn’t want today. You positively smell musty, your ideas are so old. You’re the last of the politicians, Carter, just as I was the last of the Chamber of Commerce secretaries. Only you don’t know it yet. I did. I got out. Even when it cost me something, I got out, because I had to save my self-respect. Your kind of politics is dead. They are dead because any tinhorn with a loud mouth and a brassy front could gain power by appeal to mob psychology. And you haven’t got mob psychology any more. You can’t have mob psychology when people don’t give a damn what happens to a thing that’s dead already—a political system that broke down under its own weight.””

Source: City (1952), Chapter 1, “City” (pp. 34-35)

Tucker Carlson photo

“I think it’s a total nightmare and disaster, and I’m ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it (the U. S. war in Iraq). It’s something I’ll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who’s smarter than I am, and I shouldn’t have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I’m enraged by it, actually.”

Tucker Carlson (1969) American political commentator

New York Observer, 12 May 2004
Expressing his regret for initially supporting the Iraq War
Source: https://observer.com/2004/05/newly-dovish-tucker-carlson-goes-publickimmel-writer-ribs-times/

Henry Van Dyke photo

“Politics is too often regarded as a poor relation, inherently dependent and subsidiary; it is rarely praised as something with a life and character of its own.”

Bernard Crick (1929–2008) British political theorist and democratic socialist

Source: In Defence Of Politics (Second Edition) – 1981, Chapter 1, The Nature Of Political Rule, p. 15.

Terence Tao photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Naomi Klein photo
Gloria Estefan photo
Jopie Huisman photo

“I worked for months on this painting [title 'The Stone-wheelbarrow of C. Adema', 1977], for instance that well-bucket on the wheelbarrow I painted a twenty times or more, and it is constructed exactly as nature has shaped it. I want to make it harder and harder for myself. 'That's how it is' doesn’t exist for me. Deepening, that's what it is all about. My wish is to make in due time a small painting in which I can hardly discover any longer that it is painted, that it is just there, like that. Just something very simple.”

Jopie Huisman (1922–2000) Dutch painter

translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jopie Huisman, in het Nederlands: Maandenlang heb ik aan dit schilderij [titel: 'De steenkruiwagen van C. Adema', 1977] gewerkt en die putemmer bijvoorbeeld op de kruiwagen, heb ik wel twintig keer geschilderd en is precies zo opgebouwd als de natuur hem gevormd heeft. Ik wil het mezelf steeds moeilijker maken. Zo kan het wel – bestaat niet voor mij. Verdieping, daar gaat het om. Ik wil nog eens een keer een schilderijtje zo maken, dat ik haast niet meer kan zien dat het geschilderd is, dat het er gewoon is, zo, zonder meer. Iets heel eenvoudigs.
Source: Jopie Huisman', 1981, p. 80

Brandon Flowers (American football) photo
Kiichiro Toyoda photo

“Before you say you can't do something, try it.”

Kiichiro Toyoda (1894–1952) Japanese businessman

Attributed to Sakichi and Kiichiro Toyoda in: Emi Osono, ‎Norihiko Shimizu, ‎Hirotaka Takeuchi (2008), Extreme Toyota: Radical Contradictions That Drive Success at the World's Best Manufacturer. p. 86

Mark Pesce photo

“I skipped Burning Man this year and realized something. It’s become a cult. And it’s about time we all woke up and recognized it.”

Mark Pesce (1962) American writer

McBurners http://www.tripzine.com/listing.php?id=mcburners

Raymond Kethledge photo
Stuart Kauffman photo

“Stephen Jay Gould is extremely bright, inventive. He thoroughly understands paleontology; he thoroughly understands evolutionary biology. He has performed an enormous service in getting people to think about punctuated equilibrium, because you see the process of stasis/sudden change, which is a puzzle. It's the cessation of change for long periods of time. Since you always have mutations, why don't things continue changing? You either have to say that the particular form is highly adapted, optimal, and exists in a stable environment, or you have to be very puzzled. Steve has been enormously important in that sense. Talking with Steve, or listening to him give a talk, is a bit like playing tennis with someone who's better than you are. It makes you play a better game than you can play. For years, Steve has wanted to find, in effect, what accounts for the order in biology, without having to appeal to selection to explain everything—that is, to the evolutionary "just-so stories." You can come up with some cockamamie account about why anything you look at was formed in evolution because it was useful for something. There is no way of checking such things. We're natural allies, because I'm trying to find sources of that natural order without appealing to selection, and yet we all know that selection is important.”

Stuart Kauffman (1939) American biophysicist

Kauffman in: John Brockman, ed. (1995) The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution, p. 64-65. ( online http://www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/i-Ch.2.html)

James E. Lovelock photo
Ken Dodd photo

“Did you know that a laugh is something that comes out of a hole in your face? Anywhere else and you're in dead trouble!”

Ken Dodd (1927–2018) English comedian, singer-songwriter and actor

Quoted in Manchester Evening News, http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/entertainment/comedy/s/234/234894_dodds_bolton_bonus.htmlDodd's Bolton bonus, Natalie Anglesey. (2008-04-28)

José Ortega Y Gasset photo
Steve-O photo

“As far as a compassionate lifestyle and [it being] healthy for me, for the planet and all the life on it, vegan is really the best way to go. It helps me a lot. I really believe that I'm doing something good for me and for everyone else every time I eat, you know.”

Steve-O (1974) England-born American stunt performer/radio personality

"Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O: Jackass 3D" https://www.suicidegirls.com/girls/nicole_powers/blog/2680298/johnny-knoxville-and-steve-o-jackass-3d/, interview with SuicideGirls (October 14, 2010).

Mahasi Sayadaw photo