Quotes about speaking (4419 quotes, page 19)

“Yeah, the good news about the move to abolish the death tax, the tax where they come and look at how much money you've got when you die, how much gold is in your teeth and they want half of it, is that — you're right, there's an exemption for — I don't know — maybe a million dollars now, and it's scheduled to go up a little bit. However, 70 percent of the American people want to abolish that tax. Congress, the House and Senate, have three times voted to abolish it. The president supports abolishing it, so that tax is going to be abolished. I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70-plus percent of Americans want to abolish the death tax, because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who played at the politics of hate and envy and class division will say, 'Yes, well, that's only 2 percent,' or as people get richer 5 percent in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax. I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust. 'Well, it's only a small percentage,' you know. 'I mean, it's not you, it's somebody else.' And this country, people who may not make earning a lot of money the centerpiece of their lives, they may have other things to focus on, they just say it's not just. If you've paid taxes on your income once, the government should leave you alone. Shouldn't come back and try and tax you again.”

Grover Norquist (1956) Conservative Lobbyist

interview with NPR's Terry Gross on the program Fresh Air, October 2, 2003.
2003

Death , Money , Hate , People

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Problem of Pain

The Problem of Pain (1940)

God , Pain , Pleasure , World

“The freedom secured by the Constitution consists, in one of its essential dimensions, of the right of the individual not to be injured by the unlawful exercise of governmental power. The mandate for segregated schools, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954); a wrongful invasion of the home, Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505 (1961); or punishing a protester whose views offend others, Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S. 397 (1989); and scores of other examples teach that individual liberty has constitutional protection, and that liberty’s full extent and meaning may remain yet to be discovered and affirmed. Yet freedom does not stop with individual rights. Our constitutional system embraces, too, the right of citizens to debate so they can learn and decide and then, through the political process, act in concert to try to shape the course of their own times and the course of a nation that must strive always to make freedom ever greater and more secure. Here Michigan voters acted in concert and statewide to seek consensus and adopt a policy on a difficult subject against a historical background of race in America that has been a source of tragedy and persisting injustice. That history demands that we continue to learn, to listen, and to remain open to new approaches if we are to aspire always to a constitutional order in which all persons are treated with fairness and equal dignity. Were the Court to rule that the question addressed by Michigan voters is too sensitive or complex to be within the grasp of the electorate; or that the policies at issue remain too delicate to be resolved save by university officials or faculties, acting at some remove from immediate public scru-tiny and control; or that these matters are so arcane that the electorate’s power must be limited because the people cannot prudently exercise that power even after a full debate, that holding would be an unprecedented restriction on the exercise of a fundamental right held not just by one person but by all in common. It is the right to speak and debate and learn and then, as a matter of political will, to act through a lawful electoral process.”

Anthony Kennedy (1936) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, 572 U. S. ____, (2016), plurality opinion.

People , Education , School , Law

“I have received a question I have expected, 'Don't you deal with accidents?' Yes, I deal with accidents, just as Arp admits it all the time. And I admit it, too. But I like to have them under my command and not sign them because they are accidents. If it remains only accident then sign it 'accident' or 'fate' or 'the Lord', whatever you prefer. It's not you because you have not visioned it. You see visual formulation deals with vision, visual information and visual reaction. So I speak differently from all those who deliver themselves to uncontrolled accidents.”

Josef Albers (1888–1976) German-American artist and educator

Homage to the square' (1964), Oral history interview with Josef Albers' (1968)

Fate , Question , Time

“The disciple must break the glass, or better the mirror, the reflection, his infinite speculation on the master. And start to speak.”

Jacques Derrida book Writing and Difference

Cogito and The History of Madness, p.37 (Routledge classics edition)
Writing and Difference (1978)

“Everyone can see the arguments against the English-speaking peoples becoming the policemen of the world.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

To End War, Collier's, 29 June 1935
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol I, Churchill at War, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 351-2. ISBN 0903988429
The 1930s

People , World

“I grew up victim to a disabling confusion. As I grew fluent in English, I no longer could speak Spanish with confidence.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982)

Confidence

“The difference between the radicals and the other groups is often only this: that the radicals fail to recognize what they are doing, and continue to speak as though they were separated from the world.”

H. Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) American theologian

Source: Christ and Culture (1951), pp. 75-76

World

“I often used to sit and view the moon for a long time; and in the day spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things: in the mean time, singing forth, with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer. And scarce any thing, among all the works of nature, was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning; formerly nothing had been so terrible to me. Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunder-storm rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. I felt God, if I may so speak, at the first appearance of a thunderstorm; and used to take the opportunity, at such times, to fix myself in order to view the clouds, and see the lightnings play, and hear the majestic and awful voice of God's thunder, which oftentimes was exceedingly entertaining, leading me to sweet contemplations of my great and glorious God. While thus engaged, it always seemed natural for me to sing, or chant forth my meditations; or to speak my thoughts in soliloquies with a singing voice.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

"Personal Narrative" (1739), from The Works of President Edwards (1830) Vol. I, edited by Sereno B. Dwight.

God , Nature , Appearance , Singing

“What humiliation, what disgrace for us all, that it should be necessary for one man to exhort other men not to be inhuman and irrational towards their fellow-creatures! Do they recognise, then, no mind, no soul in them — have they not feeling, pleasure in existence, do they not suffer pain? Do their voices of joy and sorrow indeed fail to speak to the human heart and conscience — so that they can murder the jubilant lark, in the first joy of his spring-time, who ought to warm their hearts with sympathy, from delight in bloodshed or for their ‘sport,’ or with a horrible insensibility and recklessness only to practise their aim in shooting! Is there no soul manifest in the eyes of the living or dying animal — no expression of suffering in the eye of a deer or stag hunted to death — nothing which accuses them of murder before the avenging Eternal Justice? …. Are the souls of all other animals but man mortal, or are they essential in their organisation? Does the world-idea (Welt-Idee) pertain to them also — the soul of nature — a particle of the Divine Spirit? I know not; but I feel, and every reasonable man feels like me, it is in miserable, intolerable contradiction with our human nature, with our conscience, with our reason, with all our talk of humanity, destiny, nobility; it is in frightful (himmelschreinder) contradiction with our poetry and philosophy, with our nature and with our (pretended) love of nature, with our religion, with our teachings about benevolent design — that we bring into existence merely to kill, to maintain our own life by the destruction of other life. …. It is a frightful wrong that other species are tortured, worried, flayed, and devoured by us, in spite of the fact that we are not obliged to this by necessity; while in sinning against the defenceless and helpless, just claimants as they are upon our reasonable conscience and upon our compassion, we succeed only in brutalising ourselves. This, besides, is quite certain, that man has no real pity and compassion for his own species, so long as he is pitiless towards other races of beings.”

Bogumil Goltz (1801–1870) German humorist and satirist

Das Menschendasein in seinen weltewigen Zügen und Zeichen (1850); as quoted in The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice of Flesh-eating https://archive.org/stream/ethicsofdietcate00will/ethicsofdietcate00will#page/n3/mode/2up by Howard Williams (London: F. Pitman, 1883), pp. 287-286.

Love , Life , Death , Men

“What I would take 'racialist' to mean is a person who believes in the inherent inferiority of one race of mankind to another, and who acts and speaks in that belief. So the answer to the question of whether I am a racialist is 'no'—unless, perhaps, it is to be a racialist in reverse. I regard many of the peoples in India as being superior in many respects—intellectually, for example, and in other respects—to Europeans. Perhaps that is over-correcting.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Interview with the Birmingham Post (4 May 1968), from Simon Heffer, Like the Roman. The Life of Enoch Powell (Phoenix, 1999), pp. 466-467
1960s

People , Question , Personality

“"Be ye Good Boys, go seek for Heav'en, come pay the priest that holds the key;"
So spake, and speaks, and aye shall speak the last to enter Heaven, — he.”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Boy

“It is most important that we should rid art of all that it has contained of ‘recognizable material’ to date, all familiar subject matter, all traditional ideas, all popular symbols must be banished forthwith. More important still, we must hold enormous faith in ourselves; it is essential that the revelation we receive, the conception of an image which embraces a certain thing, which has no sense in itself, which has no subject, which means ‘absolutely nothing’ from the logical point of view.... should speak so strongly in us, evoke such agony or joy, that we feel compelled to paint.”

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) Italian artist

as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Ghiberti to Gainsborough, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p . 232
1908 - 1920, On Mystery and Creation, Paris 1913

Faith , Art , Feeling , Idea

“It is quite likely that it is possible, yes. But what we've said all along -- speaking for both the (Roslin) Institute and the PPL staff - is that we would find it ethically unacceptable to think of doing that. We can't think of a reason to do it. If there was a reason to copy a human being, we would do it, but there isn't.”

Ian Wilmut (1944) embryologist

On human cloning, in "Dr. Frankenstein, I Presume?" by Andrew Ross in Salon February 1997) http://web.archive.org/web/20000301033550/http://www.salon.com/feb97/news/news2970224.html.

Thinking

“I don't know that you can speak of shock … Nothing is too shocking for me. I don't really know what is shocking. When you tell the story of a man who is beheaded, you have to show how they cut off his head. If you don't, it's like telling a dirty joke and leaving out the punch line.”

Roman Polanski (1933) Polish-French film director, producer, writer, actor, and rapist

As quoted in Atlas magazine, Vol. 20 (1971), p. 56, and The Book of Hollywood Quotes (1979) by Gary Herman, p. 26

“[H]e was genuinely incapable of uttering a single sentence that was not a cliché. […] Eichmann, despite his rather bad memory, repeated word for word the same stock phrases and self-invented clichés (when he did succeed in constructing a sentence of his own, he repeated it until it became a cliché) each time he referred to an incident or event of importance to him. […] The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such.”

Hannah Arendt book Eichmann in Jerusalem

Source: Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), Ch. III.

Communication , Thinking , Reality , Memory

“(When asked who the three finest old time guitarists were) Well, I would have to pick Travis, you know; I think he's a great man with his music, and there's been many a man that's copied from Merle. You know, they say he learned from a man in Kentucky. Well, I know this Mose Rager he learned from, he learned from Arnold Shultz, the man I speak of, a colored man, in playing the blues. So I think it all leads back to this old colored man back in Kentucky.”

Bill Monroe (1911–1996) American bluegrass musician

Music , Color , Thinking , Learning

“Generally speaking there is no irreducible taste or inclination. They all represent a certain appropriative choice of being. It is up to existential psychoanalysis to compare and classify them. Ontology abandons us here; it has merely enabled us to determine the ultimate ends of human reality, its fundamental possibilities, and the value which haunts it.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Being and Nothingness

Being and Nothingness (1943)

Reality

“This baby (the Remington SL3 typewriter) speaks electric Shakespeare at the slightest provocation and will rap out a page and a half if you just look at it hard.”

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)

Baby

“We can say to the other revolutionaries: you are right to be dissatisfied with this society with its erroneous and unjust ways, but how can you change everything straightaway with your own hands? Do you want to destroy the persons whom you see as adversaries, and even those who you suspect of not being revolutionary?
Do you want the revolution to go forward with massacres, torture, the absolute power of a group, which prevents other people from speaking, informing themselves or criticizing or even living? We want a society founded on love and shall we start with cultivating and stimulating hatred? We want a free society and should we increase tyranny and absolutism? We want a good and clean end and should we use dirty and terrible means?”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Hymn

Love , People , Way , Change

“So David outside of gay and lesbian issues, first of all no one should get fired because they are gay or lesbian period. But when you set these laws up my experience with these laws are you create a protected class. And I speak as someone who started a one man handyman business in Albuquerque in 1974 and grew it to over a thousand employees… I’ll tell you because of our laws that we passed on safety issues that this whole notion of whistle blower legislation it sounds great but the reality is… employees that were horrible declared themselves to be whistle blowers in the safety category or they declared themselves an alcoholic because of legislation [feedback] the American for Disabilities Act… I want that person who breaks a window breaks a windshield with a rock prosecuted on the basis that they threw a rock through a windshield not because they were motivated by hate.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Statement made to representatives of the Pagan Newswire Collective (PNC)
2011-10-16
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paganswithdisabilities/2011/10/full-transcript-of-qa-with-presidential-candidate-gary-johnson/
2012-02-24
Sound Government

Hate , Alcohol , Law , Motivation

“Language of the liberal dead speaks
From the soil of Highgate, tears
Show a great water table is intact.
You cannot leave England, it turns
A planet majestically in the mind.”

Peter Porter (1929–2010) British poet

"The Last of England", p. 1.
The Last of England (1970)

Tear , Water , Dead

“There are no Reconstruction reenactors. And who would want to be? Reconstruction is the disappointing epilogue to the American Civil War, a sort of Grimm fairy tale stepchild of the war and the ugly duckling of American history. Even Abraham Lincoln was uneasy at using the word "reconstruction"--he qualified it with add-ons like "what is called reconstruction" or "a plan of reconstruction (as the phrase goes)"--and preferred to speak of the "re-inauguration of the national authority" or the need to "reinaugurate loyal state governments." Unlike the drama of the war years, Reconstruction has no official starting or ending date. Although we usually bookend the period with the Confederate surrender in 1865 and the withdrawal of federal occupation troops in 1877, people had been talking about "reconstruction" even before the shooting began in 1861, and the federal occupation troops who were withdrawn in 1877 were by that time little more than a corporal's guard. In some sense, Reconstruction ended when Democrats managed to regain control of the House of Representatives in 1874; other parts of it spluttered on…”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, Defending Reconstruction (2017)

War , People , Disappointment , History

“As far as vocal preparation goes, it’s really an interesting thing for such a fragile instrument and using it properly is like walking a tightrope. I have learned not to do extensive warm-ups. It’s really more of a cerebral mind-body connection Zen hippy thing, just knowing your body and figuring out if I do that then I will be able to speak tomorrow.”

Davey Havok (1975) American singer

On singing. Southern Courier, February 2010 http://southern-courier.whereilive.com.au/lifestyle/story/body-on-the-line/

Learning

“Alas, our noble men of genius, Heaven's real messengers to us, they also rendered nearly futile by the wasteful time;—preappointed they everywhere, and assiduously trained by all their pedagogues and monitors, to "rise in Parliament," to compose orations, write books, or in short speak words, for the approval of reviewers; instead of doing real kingly work to be approved of by the gods!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The Present Time (February 1, 1850)

Men , God , Books , Time

“Words that weep and tears that speak.”

Abraham Cowley (1618–1667) British writer

The Prophet; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn", Thomas Gray, Progress of Poesy, iii. 3, 4.

Tear

“Dour, anxious Hesiod writes about the daily round of farming and the effects if the seasons on rural life but also speaks in his Works and Days about the value of festal competitions with "potter against potter, carpenter against carpenter… poet against poet."”

Thomas Cahill (1940) American scholar and writer

Source: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch. III The Poet: How to Party

Life , Season

“She hasn’t got any intellect to speak of; but you don’t need any intellect to be an intellectual.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Scandal of Father Brown

The Scandal of Father Brown (1935) The Scandal of Father Brown
The Father Brown Mystery Series (1910 - 1927)

“Faith is a Christian's right eye, without which he cannot look for Christ; right hand, without which he cannot do for Christ; it is his tongue, without which he cannot speak for Christ; it is his vital spirit, without which he cannot act for Christ.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Source: Quotes from secondary sources, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, 1895, P. 230.

Faith , Christ

“Christ has been much misinterpreted by the world. Even the most elementary principles of his teachings have been desecrated, and their esoteric depths have been forgotten. They have been crucified at the hands of dogma, prejudice, and cramped understanding. Genocidal wars have been fought, people have been burned as witches and heretics, on the presumed authority of man-made doctrines of Christianity. How to salvage the immortal teachings from the hands of ignorance? We must know Jesus as an Oriental Christ, a supreme yogi who manifested full mastery of the universal science of God-union, and thus could speak and act as a savior with the voice and authority of God.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You, (2004) by Yogananda

God , War , People , World

“In speaking of the European slave trade, mention must be made of the U. S. A., not only because its dominant population was European but also because Europe transferred its capitalist institutions more completely to North America than to any other part of the globe, and established a powerful form of capitalism—after eliminating the indigenous inhabitants and exploiting the labor of millions of Africans.”

Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 134.

Parting

“If I should go before the rest of you,
Break not a flower, nor inscribe a stone,
Nor, when I’m gone, speak in a Sunday voice,
But be the usual selves That I have known.”

Joyce Grenfell (1910–1979) British comedian, singer, actress

Poem If I should go before the rest of you

Flowers

“Metaphorically speaking, free African-American politicians and activists are boiling the bones of their enslaved ancestors to make soup. The suffering of slaves is being exploited posthumously to shape discourse in politically advantageous ways.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"What Cultural Marxist Would Say About Looting, http://www.wnd.com/2017/09/what-cultural-marxists-would-say-about-looting/" WND.COM, September 14, 2017
2010s, 2017

Way , Suffering

“My observation of the flight of buzzards leads me to believe that they regain their lateral balance when partly overturned by a gust of wind, by a torsion of the tips of the wings. If the rear edge of the right wing tip is twisted upward and the left downward the bird becomes an animated windmill and instantly begins to turn, a line from its head to its tail being the axis. It thus regains its level even if thrown on its beam’s end, so to speak, as I have frequently seen them. I think the bird also in general retains its lateral equilibrium, partly by presenting its two wings at different angles to the wind, and partly by drawing in one wing, thus reducing its area. I incline to the belief that the first is the more important and usual method….
My business requires that my experimental work be confined to the months between September and January and I would be particularly thankful for advice as to a suitable locality where I could depend on winds of about 15 miles per hour without rain or too inclement weather. I am certain that such localities are rare.”

Wilbur Wright (1867–1912) American aviation pioneer

Letter to Octave Chanute (13 May 1900)

Business , Bird , Thinking , Animals

“Since I expressed my views…in July last year, I have sought to negotiate a position which would allow me to defend my stance in public, especially when it is questioned. The BBC has required that I do not speak on matters on which my stance is already known. That is not acceptable to me. I have therefore asked the corporation to accept my resignation as South Asia correspondent.”

Mark Tully (1935) British journalist

When he quit BBC due to differences with John Birt, the Director General of BBC.
Source: Peter Victor, " Tully quits BBC http://www.independent.co.uk/news/tully-quits-bbc-1412865.html," The Independent, 10 July 1994

Question

“Romantically speaking, the idea of lovers experiencing the ultimate orgasmic rapture while floating in zero gravity is a metaphor.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta Talks Sex in Space (Interview - Femail magazine)

Lovers , Idea

“A public library does not acquire Internet terminals in order to create a public forum for Web publishers to express themselves, any more than it collects books in order to provide a public forum for the authors of books to speak.”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

United States v. American Library Association, 539 U.S. 194 (2003) (plurality opinion); the case concerned whether Congress could require libraries receiving Federal subsidies for Internet connectivity to install filtering software.
Judicial opinions

Books

“… that new spirit which is passing from municipal into Imperial politics, which aims more at the improvement of the lot of the worker and the toiler than at those great constitutional effects in which past Parliaments have taken as their pride… It is all very well to make great speeches and to win great divisions. It is well to speak with authority in the councils of the world and to see your navies riding on every sea, and to see your flag on every shore. That is well, but it is not all. I am certain that there is a party in this country not named as yet that is disconnected with any existing political organization, a party which is inclined to say, "A plague on both your Houses, a plague on all your parties, a plague on all your politics, a plague on your ending discussions which yield so little fruit." (Cheers.) "Have done with this unending talk and come down and do something for the people." It is this spirit which animates, as I believe, the great masses of our artisans, the great masses of our working clergy, the great masses of those who work for and with the poor, and who for the want of a better word I am compelled to call by the bastard term of philanthropists.”

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician

Speech to a meeting at St James's Hall on behalf of the Progressive majority in the London County Council (21 March 1894), reported in The Times (22 March 1894), p. 7.

People , World , Past , Animals

“The Bible predicts that in the last days of man-made regimes on earth, a totally godless, anti-Christ world government will arise, led by a Devil-possessed dictator, Satan incarnate, who will bring a temporary false peace on earth and a counterfeit utopia. Its price will be enforced worship of him as the imitation Messiah. All of his subjects will be branded with a credit number in order to buy or sell or obtain food or employment, and all those who refuse to cooperate will be hunted, persecuted, and slaughtered by his commandment. This will be a time of Great Tribulation.
This anti-Christ government of anti-Christ forces under the leadership of the Antichrist himself, this superhuman world dictator of man's last one-world godless government, will then set up its headquarters in Jerusalem, his capital, and unite all peoples of the world into a one-world worship of this demon-demagogue and his magical image which can speak.
These startling events will immediately precede the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, which is the major endtime event, the grand climax, as the Lord Himself returns and wipes out the Antichrist and his followers and sets up the last and most lasting and only perfect government the world has ever known, and "the meek shall inherit the earth"”

David Berg (1919–1994) Children of God founder

Psalm 37:11
A More Sure Word of Prophecy (2 Peter 1:19)

People , World , Peace , Food

“"Come on! You too, Will."
"If you must call me anything, you may address me as Most Excellent Testamentary Clause," said the sun bear.
"Claws?" said Suzy, as she tilted the chair to speed the bear on its way. "Orright, Claws, hop to it."
"No, no, no," protested the sun bear. "Most Excellent-"
"Claws it is," said Suzy loudly. "After you, Claws."
"I said… oh… just don't speak to me," huffed the Will as it waddled after Arthur.”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Grim Tuesday (2004), p. 300.

Way , Sun , Speed

“Engineers speak of a “control loop,” in which the “man in the loop” is the problematical element. This is the human component in a series of sequentially interacting pieces of equipment that control or adjust a function. But when the pilot is suddenly and unexpectedly brought into the control loop (in other words, participates in decision making) as a result of (inevitable) equipment failure, he is disoriented. Long periods of passive monitoring make one unprepared to act in emergencies. The sudden appearance of several alarms, all there for safety reasons, leads to disorientation.”

Charles Perrow book Normal Accidents

Source: 1980s and later, Normal Accidents, 1984, p. 132

Failure , Decision , Appearance

“She is so deluded that she genuinely believes she speaks for all women. She's a victim of her own success. I liked the early Steinem. There was once a survey conducted for Time about who would make a good candidate for the first female president, and I wrote in Gloria Steinem. But now? Gloria Steinem is dissing men and dissing fashion and she's out having her hair streaked at Kenneth's. She became a socialite with a coterie. A lot of middle-aged white ladies still love her, but the media have been negligent regarding her.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

On Gloria Steinem
Playboy interview (May 1995)

Love , Women , Men , Age

“Harman: Commenting on the question of Sarah Palin, I think that men in politics underestimate women in politics at their peril, and I think that - although I strongly, strongly disagree with very many of the policies she's putting forward - I think she's speaking to the fact that many women feel that they're working hard, they're bringing up their families, they've got a viewpoint on life and the political system excludes them and she has touched that nerve in America. I mean, I don't agree with her politics but I think that she has touched a nerve and I think that then places a big challenge to the Democrats to make sure that they, as a Party which has long championed equality and equality for women that they actually match them and gear up their act.
David Dimbleby: You admire her?
Harman: I think that she's tough, I don't agree with her politics, I wouldn't vote for her if I was in the States, but I think that she is impressive, yes. But I would rather see the Democrats getting, you know, an even more impressive woman right up at the front.”

Harriet Harman (1950) British politician

During an episode of Question Time http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etg5lm92Io8, 18 September, 2008

Life , Women , Men , Family

“A curious horror overtook him, then. His skin crawled; the back of his neck turned damp and cold. I can’t go yet, he thought. It’s not fair! He shuddered. The void seemed to speak to him. Fairness has nothing to do with it. This will happen, and your wishes are meaningless.”

Charles Stross book Singularity Sky

Source: Singularity Sky (2003), Chapter 12, “Bouncers” (p. 257)

“I am a skeptic about everything, including God and atheism. I am not certain about issues of cosmology.… I am more certain that the miraculous stories that form the basis of most religious beliefs are myths. Yet I respect the Bible and enjoy reading and teaching it. Indeed, I find it even more fascinating as a human creation than as a divine revelation. I consider myself a committed Jew, but I do not believe that being a Jew requires belief in the supernatural.… Indeed, it is while praying that I experience my greatest doubts about God, and it is while looking at the stars that I make the leap of faith.… If there is a governing force, He (or She or It) is certainly not in touch with those who purport to be speaking on His behalf.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

"Taking Disbelief Out of the Closet", Free Inquiry, 19(3), p. 7, Summer 1999.

God , Faith , Star , Reading

“The Maharaja of Mysore (then Governor of Mysore), ayachamarajendra Wodeyar, visited Berkeley for a day. I took him around. He was really impressed when he saw the accelerators in the Radiation Laboratory on the hill. He was happy to speak to me in Kannada and even more happy that I knew a little Sanskrit.”

C. N. R. Rao (1934) Indian chemist

Source: Climbing the Limitless Ladder: A Life in Chemistry (2010), p. 35

Happiness

“With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country, to one united people; a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established their general Liberty and Independence.”

John Jay Federalist Papers

1780s, The Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 2 (1787)

War , People , Pleasure , Religion

“He that would speak Divine things in a language which living men of to-day can comprehend, must keep up with the researches and discoveries of men who study nature, and put her words into the speech of the present.”

John Heyl Vincent (1832–1920) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 414.

Men , Nature , Study

“The security and happiness of all minority groups in South Africa depend on the Afrikaner. Whether they are English- or German- or Portuguese- or Italian-speaking, or even Jewish-speaking, makes no difference.”

P. W. Botha (1916–2006) South African prime minister

Speaking to the House of Assembly on February 20, 1981, as cited by Andrew Donaldson, Sunday Times, 5 November 2006

Dependency , Happiness

“Hurrying to die,
It’s difficult to find a last word.
If I spoke the wordless word,
I wouldn’t speak at all!”

Dokyo Etan (1642–1721) Son of Sanada Nobuyuki

Richard Bryan McDaniel. Zen Masters of Japan. The Second Step East. Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing, 2014. p. 122.

“Universities are bastions of free speech and incubators of new and challenging ideas. But sometimes they fail to see the creeping extremism on their campuses. When David Irving goes to a university to deny the Holocaust – university leaders rightly come out and condemn him. They don’t deny his right to speak but they do challenge what he says. But when an Islamist extremist goes there to promote their poisonous ideology, too often university leaders look the other way through a mixture of misguided liberalism and cultural sensitivity.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2015, Speech on (20 July 2015)

Way , Idea , Universe

“What does a woman desire?' she asked, speaking as if to herself, and her voice was soft as she gazed over the valley. 'Men think it is a handsome face or a brisk air or a smooth tongue. And some will have it that it is a deep purse or a high station. But I think it is the honest heart that goes all the way with a woman's love. We are not so blind as to believe that the glitter is the gold. We love romance, but we seek it in its true home.”

John Buchan book Salute to Adventurers

Source: Salute to Adventurers (1915), Ch. 28 "How Three Souls Found Their Heritage"

Love , Men , Way , Home

“Yet, just as in any kindergarten, there are always a few naughty children who don't like to be told what to do. There are always some people who refuse to be administered amnesia. They are always trying to speak in their own words, always spreading their creative wings to fly beyond the boundaries of official memory. Following their conscience, they are willing to fly anywhere, into the past, the present or the future, in order to produce works that can pass our memories onto younger generations.”

Yan Lianke (1958) Chinese novelist and satirist

"On China's State-Sponsored Amnesia"

Children , People , Memory , Past

“There shall always be much silence in a man's conduct. He shall speak only about a matter concerned with wisdom or matters that are necessary to keep his body alive.”

Maimónides (1138–1204) rabbi, physician, philosopher

Source: Hilkhot De'ot (Laws Concerning Character Traits), Chapter 2, Section 4, p. 32

Wisdom , Silence

“I know I’m also the girl who’s Chinese family doesn’t speak Chinese, and I’ve grown up watching Western philosophy movies teaching me that I should follow my heart and that I can do and be anything I desire. It almost feels like sometimes I’m too Asian, and then other times I’m not Asian enough. I don’t know… I’m not typical. I don’t fit the box. I’m just ME… Moments like these push me to grow and become better and all I can do is be the best me I can be and trust that what’s right for me will come along.”

Nikki SooHoo (1988) American actress

My Reflection in Mulan http://nikkisoohoo.com/blog/2016/11/7/my-reflection-in-mulan (November 7, 2016)

Family , Feeling , Girl , Time

“As a fiction writer, I don't speak message. I speak story. Sure, my story means something, but if you want to know what it means, you have to ask the question in terms appropriate to storytelling. Terms such as message are appropriate to expository writing, didactic writing, and sermons—different languages from fiction.
The notion that a story has a message assumes that it can be reduced to a few abstract words, neatly summarized in a school or college examination paper or a brisk critical review.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

"A Message About Messages" in CBC Magazine https://web.archive.org/web/20051128074549/http://www.cbcbooks.org/cbcmagazine/meet/leguin_ursula_k.html

School , Question

“Night in so sweet an attitude beheld Asleep, was by an angel sculptured In this stone; and sleeping, is alive; Waken her, doubter; she will speak to thee”

Giovan Battista Strozzi

Epigram for Michelangelo's ""la Notte""

Angels , Sleep , Night

“Whilst my country remains in sorrow and subjection, it would be indelicate of me to participate in the festivities you propose. When she lifts her head and nerves her arm for a bolder struggle — when she goes forth like Miriam, with song and trimble, to celebrate her victory — I too shall lift up my head, and join in the hymn of freedom. Till then, the retirement I seek will best accord with the love I bear her, and the sadness which her present fate inspires. Nor do I forget the companions of my exile. The freedom that has been restored to me is embittered by the recollection of their captivity. My heart is with them at this hour, and shares the solitude in which they dwell. Whilst they are in prison a shadow rests upon my spirit, and the thoughts that otherwise might be free throb heavily within me. It is painful for me to speak. I should feel happy in being permitted to be silent for these reasons you will not feel displeased with me for declining the honours you solicit me to accept.”

Thomas Francis Meagher (1823–1867) Irish nationalist & American politician

Declining to accept any public entertainment in his honour, after his escape (1852)

Love , Pain , Fate , Sadness

“Tumult, weeping, many new ghosts.
Heartbroken, aging, alone, I sing
To myself. Ragged mist settles
In the spreading dusk. Snow skurries
In the coiling wind. The wineglass
Is spilled. The bottle is empty.
The fire has gone out in the stove.
Everywhere men speak in whispers.
I brood on the uselessness of letters.”

Du Fu (712–770) Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty

"Snow Storm" (对雪), as translated by Kenneth Rexroth in One Hundred Poems from the Chinese (1971), p. 6

Men , Age , Singing

“I learned to speak Bicolano too; I never spoke the dialect when I was in the country. My roomie in Georgetown was Che Carpio, a UP Law graduate from Naga and a former seminarian. He gave me a Bible in Bicolano, by the time I returned from the US I was speaking the dialect instead of speaking in English. My father couldn't believe that I was able to speak Bicolano when I returned to the country. It's easy to learn another language using the Bible, because you roughly know the stories and if you have any doubt with the secular translation all you have to do is get an English or Tagalog version and compare. It's a verbatim translation of what was written there”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

the Bible
Jude Morte, "Tell It like It is", Manifesto, 2008, p. 71, ISSN 1908-6229.
2008

Law , Learning , Time , Country

“Israel is different. In Israel the great temptation of modernity — assimilation — simply does not exist. Israel is the very embodiment of Jewish continuity. It is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago. You dig the soil and you find pottery from Davidic times, coins from Bar Kokhba, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one that today advertises ice cream at the corner candy store.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

1990s, 1998, At Last, Zion (1998)

God , Time

“Kergan Banbeck threw up his hands, turned once more to the sacerdote. “How can I halt his nonsense? How can I make him see reason?
The sacerdote reflected. “He speaks not nonsense, but rather a language you fail to understand. You can make him understand your language by erasing all knowledge and training from his mind, and replacing it with patterns of your own.””

Jack Vance book The Dragon Masters

Section 2
The Dragon Masters (1962)

Understanding , Knowledge , Training

“The reason the first three Star Wars movies were so terrific, and the second three sucked so bad, is actually very simple. The first three were about rebels, shooting guns and driving fast, and speaking with American accents. The second three were about politicians, discussing treaties and holding court, and speaking with British accents.”

Bill Whittle (1959) author, director, screenwriter, editor

citation needed

War , Star

“Look at why Jesus strictly avoided speaking the language of the theologians of his day. It’s plain to see what an enormous liberation there lies in hearing something about God in the words of poetry. Imagine that we would speak about God in the music of Mozart and Beethoven or in the pictures of van Gogh… It would be impossible to fight wars over the true faith in the Name of Mozart or van Gogh… The language of poetry, the parables of Jesus, is international. You can’t and mustn’t pour them into dogmas.”

Eugen Drewermann (1940) German psychologist and theologian

"Heil und Heilung - Theologie und Psychoanalyse," speech at a conference of therapists in Basel, Switzerland (1977-05-21)

God , War , Faith , Music

“"It's hard for me to speak to you as if you were not a tyrant," I say. "You sit here and think you are more civilized than Luna because you obey your creed of honor, because you show restraint." I gesture to the simple house. "But you're not more civilized," I say. You're just more disciplined."
"Isn't that civilization? Order? Denying animal impulses for stability?"”

Pierce Brown book Morning Star

Source: Morning Star (2016), Ch. 41: The Moon Lord

Thinking , Animals , Housing

“The very first thing the President did was to show me the new Presidential Seal, which he had just redesigned. He explained, 'The seal has to go everywhere the President goes. It must be displayed upon the lectern when he speaks. The eagle used to face the arrows but I have re-designed it so that it now faces the olive branches … what do you think?' I said, 'Mr. President, with the greatest respect, I would prefer the American eagle's neck to be on a swivel so that it could face the olive branches or the arrows, as the occasion might demand.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

An exchange (March 4, 1946) with Harry S. Truman aboard the Presidential train in Washington, D.C.'s Union Station before journeying to Fulton, Missouri; as quoted in "The Genius and Wit of Winston Churchill" http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=825 by Robin Lawson.
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Thinking

“Actions speak louder than words. In the days to come the Goddess of Victory will bestow her laurels only on those who prepared to act with daring.”

Heinz Guderian (1888–1954) German general

Achtung-Panzer! : The Development of Armoured Forces, Their Tactics and Operational Potential (1937)

Victory

“I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often. No, seriously. It's a dramatic event. He speaks about America in a way that has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with the feeling we have about our country. And that is an objective assessment.”

Chris Matthews (1945) American news anchor

During live coverage of the presidential primaries on MSNBC, 12 February 2008 http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2008/02/13/matthews-obama-speech-caused-thrill-going-my-leg

People , Way , Feeling , Parting

“Thank you, Donald, for that well-meant but rather pedestrian introduction. Regarding yourself, I quote from the third part of Shakespeare's Henry VI, Act Two, Scene One. Richard speaks, "Were thy heart as hard as steel/ As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds/ I come to pierce it, or to give thee mine." To translate into your own idiom, Donald; you're a yo-yo. Now I direct my remarks to Dean Martin, who is being honored here tonight… for reasons that completely elude me. No, I'm not being fair to Dean because - this is true - in his way Dean, and I know him very well, has the soul of a poet. I'm told that in his most famous song Dean authored a lyric which is so romantic, so touching that it will be enjoyed by generations of lovers until the end of time. Let's share it together. [Opens a songsheet for Dean's "That's Amore" and reads in a monotone] "When the moon hits your eye/ Like a big pizza-pie/ That's amore" Now, that's what I call 'touching', Dean. It has all the romanticism of a Ty-D-Bol commercial. "When the world seems to shine/ Like you've had too much wine/ That's amore" What a profound thought. It could be inscribed forever on a cocktail napkin. Hey, there's more. "Tippy-tippy-tay/ Like a gay tarantella" Like a gay tarantella? Apparently, Dean has a 'side Dean' we know nothing about. "When the stars make you drool/ Just like a pasta fazool…. Scuzza me, but you see/ Back in old Napoli/ That's amore" No, Dean; that's infermo, Italian for "sickened". Now, lyrics like that - lyrics like that ought to be issued with a warning: a song like that is hazardous to your health. Ladies and gentlemen… [motions to Dean] you are looking at the end result!”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Speech given at a Dean Martin Celebrity Roast. Viewable here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlKR0i-51S4.

Health , World , Way , Quotes

“It is not easy to write a familiar style. Many people mistake a familiar for a vulgar style, and suppose that to write without affectation is to write at random. On the contrary, there is nothing that requires more precision, and, if I may so say, purity of expression, than the style I am speaking of. It utterly rejects not only all unmeaning pomp, but all low, cant phrases, and loose, unconnected, slipshod allusions. It is not to take the first word that offers, but the best word in common use; it is not to throw words together in any combinations we please, but to follow and avail ourselves of the true idiom of the language. To write a genuine familiar or truly English style, is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes… It is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express: it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it, out of eight or ten words equally common, equally intelligible, with nearly equal pretensions, it is a matter of some nicety and discrimination to pick out the very one the preferableness of which is scarcely perceptible, but decisive.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On Familiar Style" (1821)
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

People , Intelligence , Decision

“Having gestured at the concept of rationality, I ought to stress that I intend nothing very grand or precise by that much abused term. When I speak of agents as having rational beliefs, I mean only that their beliefs (what they hold to be true) should be suitable beliefs for them to hold true in the circumstances in which they find themselves. A rational belief will thus be one that an agent has attained by some accredited process of reasoning.”

Quentin Skinner (1940) British historian

Visions of Politics (2002), "Interpretation, rationality and truth"

“I can now report that the mathematics of the multiple focus are a most improbable thicket, and the useful service I enforced upon what I must call an absurd set of contradictions is one of my secrets. I know that thousands of scientists, at home and abroad, are attempting to duplicate my work; they are welcome to the effort. None will succeed. Why do I speak so positively? That is my other secret.”

Jack Vance (1916–2013) American mystery and speculative fiction writer

Section 3 (p. 169)
Short fiction, Rumfuddle (1973)

Secret , Home , Mathematics , Effort

“Great Britain is certainly suspect to Americans. They cannot make head or tail of her. She is a stuck-up old girl who owes a lot of money - an odd thing for such a highly respectable old lady to do. She is rather flighty, which is alarming in one so old - she never seems quite serious, that is - goes into giggles all of a sudden, or smiles enigmatically, if politely. She seems to the average American slightly phoney. Let us face up to that. She has many habits which baffle and put one on one's guard - the curious way she has of speaking English with a foreign accent, for instance. Then she must be the most quarrelsome old dame which ever stepped: always - umbrella in hand - getting into scraps with her neighbours, and spitting at them over the garden wall.”

Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957) writer and painter

The Hitler Cult (Dent, 1949)

Money , Smile , Way , Girl

“When discussing things with someone, it is best to speak appropriately about whatever the subject may be. No matter how good what you are saying might be, it will dampen the conversation if it is irrelevant.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Hagakure (c. 1716)

“Talk can be cheap, very cheap. It can also be costly. “Speak out!” we say. “Why are you afraid to speak out?” we say. In dictatorships, it can be very, very hard to speak out. Many people have been imprisoned or worse for talk. But even in democratic societies, talk can be hard. It can be hard not only in politics but also in high schools and families and churches and professional communities and other arenas. But even in democratic societies, talk can be hard. It can be hard not only in politics but also in high schools and families and churches and professional communities and other arenas.”

Jay Nordlinger (1963) American journalist

2010s, Some Talk about Talk (2018)

People , School , Family , Communication

“We may also observe, that, upon these occasions, the female Nimrods dispensed with the method of riding best suited to the modesty of the sex, and sat astride on the saddle like the men; but this indecorous custom, I trust, was never general, nor of long continuance, even with the heroines who were most delighted with these masculine exercises. An author of the seventeenth century speaks of another fashion, adopted by the fair huntresses of the town of Bury in Suffolk. "The Bury ladies," says he, "that used hawking and hunting, were once in a great vaine of wearing breeches," which it seems gave rise to many severe and ludicrous sarcasms. The only argument in favour of this habit, was decency in case of an accident. But in a manner more consistent with the delicacy of the sex, that is, by refraining from those dangerous recreations.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 14
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Hunting

Men , Sex , Exercises , Fashion

“Poetry cannot report the event, it must be the event, lived through in a form that can speak about itself while remaining wholly itself.”

Balachandra Rajan (1920–2009) Indian writer

The Overwhelming Question ' University of Toronto Press 1976

“I am speaking now of the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred — that of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt…. If we let our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without a remonstrance, we are no true lover, no true friend.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

Source: Little Foxes (1865), Ch. 3.

Lovers , Selfishness

“Fawning ambition so plainly expressed in the classroom was quite another matter. It wasn’t that I got A’s; other boys got A’s. It was that I wanted my A’s so badly and sought them so blatantly—that’s what everyone saw. Nixon: “I won my share of scholarships, and of speaking and debating prizes in school, not because I was smarter but because I worked longer and harder than some of my more gifted colleagues.””

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

School , Boy

“I think,
Some shrewd man first, a man in judgment wise,
Found for mortals the fear of gods,
Thereby to frighten the wicked should they
Even act or speak or scheme in secret.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Sisyphus, as translated by R. G. Bury, and revised by J. Garrett http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/302/critias.htm
Variant translation: He was a wise man who originated the idea of God.

God , Secret , Fear , Thinking

“Here's what I find wrong and here's what I find the common mistake the media makes. I can give you a hundred thousand Scientologists who will say unbelievably positive things about their church to every one you add on there, and I not only am upset about those people not being interviewed, they are, too. And the funny thing about it, and why you find this not really being that one who speaks in the media, is because not just myself, any Scientologist, will open up a paper, will watch this program, they're probably laughing right now, saying, "That isn't Scientology." That's what makes media. Media is controversy. I understand that. And if you really looked at the big picture of what's happening in Scientology, it isn't really controversial, certainly to a Scientologist.”

David Miscavige (1960) leader of the Church of Scientology

.

People , Understanding

“Generally speaking, America is not keen on independent countries. America is not keen on people's freedom. America is keen on countries that completely surrender themselves and act according to America's demands.”

Hassan Rouhani (1948) 7th President of Islamic Republic of Iran

"Exclusive Interview with Iranian Adviser" http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132082&page=1&singlePage=true, ABC News, (September 12, 2002)

People , Freedom , Country

“We had two masters of the spoken word in South Africa, General Smuts and his lieutenant J. H. Hofmeyr, whose life I wrote. Smuts spoke in a high-pitched voice, not the kind of voice that one would expect from a famous soldier, but he too could hold an audience in the hollow of his hand, partly because he was Smuts, partly because he could say nothing trite or shallow, partly because he knew how to speak to ordinary men and women.”

Alan Paton (1903–1988) South African writer and activist

Alan Paton on Smuts's oratory, in Paton's final essay, A Literary Remembrance, published posthumously in TIME, 25 April 1988, p. 106.

Life , Women , Men

“A pleasant-smiling cheek, a speaking eye,
A brow for love to banquet royally.”

Christopher Marlowe book Hero and Leander

First Sestiad
Hero and Leander (published 1598)

Love , Smile

“You cannot expect English people to be attracted by the brutal intolerances of Nazidom. … We certainly do not wish to pursue a policy inimical to the legitimate interests of Germany, but you must surely be aware that when the German Government speaks of friendship with England, what they mean is that we shall give them back their former Colonies, and also agree to their having a free hand so far as we are concerned in Central and Southern Europe. This means that they would devour Austria and Czecho-Slovakia as a preliminary to making a gigantic middle Europe-block. It would certainly not be in our interests to connive at such policies of aggression.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Lord Londonderry (23 October 1937), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 873
The 1930s

Friendship , People

“The speech from the throne speaks about maintaining peace - peace today, when Canadian nickel is being indirectly shipped to Ethiopia. Peace today, when Italian aeroplanes are being flown with British oil! Peace! Mr. Speaker, if this be peace it must be like the peace of the Lord - it passeth all understanding.”

Tommy Douglas (1904–1986) Scottish-born Canadian politician

Maiden speech, House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario, February 11, 1936.

Peace , Understanding

“Speak your name
And I'll feel a thrill.
You said I do,
And I said I will.I tell you that I'll stay true,
And give you just a little time.
Wait on me baby,
I want you to be all mine.
I just get so blue.Since you've been gone, baby”

Aretha Franklin (1942–2018) American musician, singer, songwriter, and pianist

why'd you do it? why'd you have to do it?
"(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You've Been Gone", written with Teddy White, from Lady Soul (1968)
Song lyrics

Feeling , Time , Waiting , Baby

“Why pray to a god who would rather speak through say, a stone? Too bad that God made so many people who are interested in music and so few stones who are.”

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

Life in the Industry: A Musician's Diary

God , People , Music

“Why was there nothing it refused? No misery, no regret, no hateful picture too rotten to accept? Like a greedy child it snatched up everything. Just once, could it say, No thank you? I just ate and can't hold another bite?... But my greedy brain says, Oh thanks, I'd love more... my brain would go right ahead and take it and never say, No thank you. I don't want to know or have to remember that. I have other things to do: worry, for example, about tomorrow, about Denver, about Beloved, about age and sickness not to speak of love. But her brain was not interested in the future. Loaded with the past and hungry for more, it left her no room to imagine, let alone plan for, the next day.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Beloved (1987)

Love , Hate , Age , Imagination

“He set no great value on money, or, perhaps, to speak properly, he set on it no more than its true value.”

Stephen Baxter (1957) author

Source: Ages in Chaos (2003), Chapter 8, “A cursed country where one has to shape everything out of a block” (p. 68)

Money

“They are damn good projects - excellent projects. That goes for all the projects up there. You know some people make fun of people who speak a foreign language, and dumb people criticize something they do not understand, and that is what is going on up there - God damn it!”

Harry Hopkins (1890–1946) American politician, 8th United States Secretary of Commerce, assistant to President Franklin Delano Roosev…

Stated at a press conference (April 4, 1935); reported in Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (1948), p. 60. Sherwood says, "The reports of this conference quoted Hopkins as saying that 'the people are too damned dumb', and this phrase was given plenty of circulation in the press" (p. 61). He adds in a footnote that "it will be seen from the transcript of his remarks that this particular statement was directed not at the people but at the critical orators" (p. 938). Also reported in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 48-49; Boller and George also note that the quote was quickly misreported as "The people are too damn dumb to understand".

God , People , Understanding

“When people talk of the Freedom of Writing, Speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to Thomas Jefferson (15 July 1817)
1810s

People , Hope , Thinking , Freedom

“The most effective way to distort reality is to deny it; if we tell ourselves there isn't a problem, then we never have to worry about what to do about it. And the most effective way to deny a reality is to make it invisible. … As with any violent ideology, the populace must be shielded from direct exposure to the victims of the system, lest they begin questioning the system or their participation in it. This truth speaks for itself: why else would the meat industry go to such lengths to keep its practices invisible?”

Melanie Joy book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows

Source: Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (2010), p. 40

Truth , Way , Question , Problem

“Tell me you stones, O speak, you towering palaces!
Streets, say a word! Spirit of this place, are you dumb?
All things are alive in your sacred walls
Eternal Rome, it's only for me all is still.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Roman Elegies

Elegy 1
Roman Elegies (1789)

“I have seen pictures [on the Salon of Brussel, 1860], of which I had never dreamed and in which I found all that my heart desires, all that I nearly always miss in the Dutch painters. Troyon, Courbet, Diaz, Dupré [all painters of the School of Barbizon, Robert Fleury have made a great impression on me. I am a good Frenchman, therefore; but, as Simon van den Berg says, it is just because I am a good Frenchman that I am a good Dutchman, since the great Frenchmen of today and the great Dutchmen of the past have much in common. Unity, restfulness, earnestness and, above all, an inexplicable intimacy with nature are what struck me most in these pictures. There were certainly also a few good Dutch pieces, but, generally speaking, when you place them next to the great Parisians, they lack that mellowness, that quality which, so to speak, resembles the deep tones of an organ. And yet this luxurious manner came originally from Holland, from our steaming, fat-coloured Holland! They were courageous pictures; there was a heart and a soul in them.”

Gerard Bilders (1838–1865) painter from the Netherlands

Quote from Bilders in his letter (End of 1860); as cited in Dutch Art in the Nineteenth Century – 'The Hague School; Introduction' https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dutch_Art_in_the_Nineteenth_Century/The_Hague_School:_Introduction, by G. Hermine Marius, transl. A. Teixera de Mattos; publish: The la More Press, London, 1908
1860's

School , Dreams , Soul , Courage

“Although the drama of games of strategy is strongly linked with the psychological aspects of the conflict, game theory is not concerned with these aspects. Game theory, so to speak, plays the board. It is concerned only with the logical aspects of strategy.”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

Source: 1960s, "The Use and Misuse of Game Theory," 1962, p. 110

Game

“I knew that I would speak in the language of the vanquished
No more durable than old customs, family rituals,
Christmas tinsel, and once a year the hilarity of carols.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"1945" (1985), trans. Czesław Miłosz and Robert Hass
New Poems (1985-1987)

Family , Christmas

“Since dreams are influenced by the predominant activities and mental preoccupations of the waking state, in order to attract higher beings you must engage in consciously higher activities. If we spend our days speaking verbal garbage and engaging in activities that do harm to ourselves and other living entities, why would any being of a higher vibration want to associate with us in our dreams or other- wise? Thus, if we raise the vibrations of our surroundings by meditating and acting according to a higher standard, utilizing prayer and focusing on helping others, we will be guided by those whose role it is to assist souls in their spiritual development.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 1: Dreams: A State of Reality, p. 29

Dreams , Soul , Help

“I’m not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic and it’s been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I’m willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person who can speak English, doesn’t have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military. Those are the citizens we need.”

Robert A. Hall (1946) American politician

I'm Tired (February 19, 2009)

Family , Religion , Support , Personality

“If I thought the Lord was speaking to me I'd check myself into Bellevue, and I think you should too.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Larry King Live, 11 August 2005; in response to a called-in question if he would become a believer if the Lord spoke to him

Thinking

Quotes about speaking page 19

Quotes about speaking
page 19